Yehiel Curry as its first Black presiding bishop Saturday, a landmark moment for the predominantly white denomination. Leila Ortiz, a friend who recently finished a term as ELCA bishop of the Metropolitan Washington, D.C., Synod. Nelson Wesley Trout, the first Black ELCA synod bishop, and the Rev. “Blacks have been around the Lutheran Church since it presented itself in New Amsterdam in the 1600s. Yolanda Denson-Byers, who wrote “See Me, Believe Me,” a book on the challenges leaders of color face in the mainly white ELCA.