The State of Adventist Racial Reconciliation: Does Racial Tension Affect Church Unity and Growth?

Executive summary

The Seventh-day Adventist Church in North America maintains a distinctive organisational structure: **regional conferences** (predominantly Black) alongside **state conferences** (historically white), a system established in 1944 when Black Adventist leaders chose self-governance over continued marginalisation in white-dominated structures. Over 80 years later, this structure persists — defended by some as an engine of Black Adventist growth and autonomy, questioned by others who see the paralle...