The minister at Highgate Baptist Church between 1889 and 1895 was Revd Peter T. Stanford, an Afrcian American ex slave who spent about 12 years in Britain and was a significant person in Birmingham's civic life.  Stanford was Birmingham's first black minister and the Birmingham Civic Society honoured him by placing a Blue Plaque on Highgate Baptist Church during Black History Month 2011. 

An electronic copy of Revd Stanford's book, 'The Tragedy of the Negro in America: A Condensed History of the Enslavement, Sufferings, Emancipation, Present Condition and Progress of the Negro Race in the United States of America' (1897) can be viewed [here]