Abstract George Liele, a slave preacher who ministered along the Savannah River, formed the First African Baptist congregation sometime in the early 1770s. During the Revolutionary War, Liele left the United States and appointed Andrew Bryan, also a slave, to lead the church. Bryan built the first church in 1795. In 1833 a division split the congregation into the Bryant Church and the First African Baptist. The present structure of the First African Baptist Church at Franklin Square was erected in...