In a phone interview, Bill Leonard, a historian of American religion who is chairman of the religion department at Samford University in Birmingham, Ala., said the resolution was an important symbol, particularly in its timing on this anniversary.

"I think it's a reminder to white Southern Baptists of the impact of race on the beginning of the denomination," he said. "Whether they held slaves or not, the original Southern Baptists came out on the side of the South's 'peculiar institution.' "

He also said the resolution was important in light of the negative response by many Southern Baptist congregations to the civil rights movement in the 1950's and 1960's. "You had churches passing by-law changes here in Birmingham that any black person who came would not be seated or would be examined to see if their interest was to join," he said. "That is not lost on black people, those memories."

During the brief discussion that preceded the vote, the Rev. Gary Frost, a black pastor from Ohio who was elected last year as the denomination's first vice president, appealed to the crowd: "I believe it is up to the body of Christ, the church of Jesus Christ, to begin true reconciliation. I pray that you accept this resolution."

After being read a copy of it, the Rev. Calvin O. Butts III, pastor of 4,500-member Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, called it a marvelous statement."

"If there's a fitting response to the 'Letter from Birmingham Jail,' this is it," said Dr. Butts, referring to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous 1963 appeal to white Southern clergy to support the Civil Rights movement.

But the Rev. Arlee Griffin Jr., pastor of 4,000-member Berean Missionary Baptist Church in Brooklyn, took a skeptical view, calling the resolution only a first step, and saying that in racial matters, Southern Baptists have "a long history and legacy to overcome."