Reverend Wallis C. Baxter III, PhD serves as the Senior Pastor of the Second Baptist Church (formerly of Southwest DC) in District Heights, MD. He is also a Visiting Assistant Professor of English at the University of District Columbia Community College. A former Academic  Research Fellow at the Benjamin L. Hooks Institute for Social Change at the University of Memphis, Dr. Baxter received the Bachelor of Arts Degree from Morehouse College in 2006, majoring in English. He received the Master of Divinity Degree from Duke Divinity School in 2009 and a PhD in African American Literature from Howard University in 2017. He is the author of several articles and book chapters. His book length publications include Phillis Wheatley as Prophetic Poet: You Must Be Born Again (May 2022) and Preaching During a Pandemic: Sermons from the Black Preaching Tradition (March 2023). He is currently working on a new book project: Let the Church be the Church Again: Prophetic Witness for an Ethically Anemic Nation.

Currently, Rev. Baxter serves as co-chair of the Constitution Committee of the Progressive National Baptist Convention, Inc., Foreign Missions Director for the Baptist Convention of DC and Vicinity and Board Member of the DC Baptist Convention. He is a past President of the Langston Hughes Society and founding President of Helping Hands of Maryland CDC, Inc. He is married to Dr. Shayla Atkins Baxter, and they are the parents of one son, Elijah.