NOTE: This biography was written by Jim McMillan.

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William Henry “Baltimore” Taylor was born in 1898. He was a prominent African American leader in both Disciples and Independent circles during his sixty plus years of ministry. As a Disciple, he was active in the National Christian Missionary Convention (NCMC) as early as 1926. He served on several committees over the years and held various offices. He served as President of NCMC for one term in 1943-1944. 

Amidst a controversy about open membership and racial independence at the 1944 annual meeting of the NCMC, Taylor was not re-elected as President for a second term. Concerned with the direction the NCMC was taking, he led in establishing, with several other independent minded ministers, the National Christian Preaching Convention. About the same time, he began publishing the Christian Informer, a monthly periodical, to promote the National Christian Preaching Convention and to publish conservative articles in support of “missionary, educational and benevolent work true to the faith.” The masthead of the Christian Informer carried the slogan “a monthly publication Devoted to the Restoration of Primitive Christianity, its Doctrine, its Ordinances and its Fruits.” Taylor was the founding minister of the Emanuel Church of Christ in Baltimore, serving there for 48 years. He died in 1982.