Faith & Community
Peerless
William Wadé Harris
c. 1860 – 1929
Baptised more than a hundred thousand people in eighteen months
Peerless is level 1 of 4 in the Liberia Hall of Fame: changed the field itself. Tell the country's story without them and the story breaks. See how the levels work.
Why they are here
A Grebo evangelist who walked out of Liberia in July 1913 in a white robe and turban, carrying a bamboo cross, a Bible and a gourd rattle. In eighteen months he baptised over a hundred thousand people. It has been called the most extraordinary one-man crusade Africa has known.
William Wadé Harris was a Liberian Grebo evangelist who preached in Liberia, Côte d'Ivoire and the Gold Coast.
On 27 July 1913 he set out from Liberia dressed in a white robe and turban and carrying a bamboo cross, a Bible and a gourd rattle — the deliberate signs of an African mission rather than a European one. He entered the Ivory Coast, where his following grew very fast, and in the eighteen months of 1913 and 1914 he baptised more than a hundred thousand converts.
The Harrist Church grew out of that work and endures today, and its appeal lay in offering Christianity through indigenous organisational, conceptual and ritual forms rather than imported ones. He has been described as the most extraordinary one-man evangelical crusade Africa has ever seen, and he did it on foot, in under two years.
On 27 July 1913 he set out from Liberia dressed in a white robe and turban and carrying a bamboo cross, a Bible and a gourd rattle — the deliberate signs of an African mission rather than a European one. He entered the Ivory Coast, where his following grew very fast, and in the eighteen months of 1913 and 1914 he baptised more than a hundred thousand converts.
The Harrist Church grew out of that work and endures today, and its appeal lay in offering Christianity through indigenous organisational, conceptual and ritual forms rather than imported ones. He has been described as the most extraordinary one-man evangelical crusade Africa has ever seen, and he did it on foot, in under two years.
- Wikipedia — William Wadé Harris
- Dictionary of African Christian Biography — Harris, William Wadé
- World Council of Churches — Church of Christ, Harris Mission (Harrist Church)
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