Dr. Lawrence Carter has served as the first Dean of the Martin Luther King, Jr. International Chapel since 1979. He is a tenured Professor of Philosophy and Religion and the Archivist and Curator at  Morehouse College. Professor Carter teaches Psychology of Religion, Religion and Ethics, Introduction to Religion, and The Life and Thought of Martin Luther King, Jr. For thirty-nine years, Carter has studied and worked in thirteen American universities, colleges, and professional schools, spoken at fifty-nine colleges, universities, and seminars, and received over hree-hundred speaking engagements from eighteen denominations coast-to-coast in the United States and abroad. 

He has made over fifty radio and television appearances, including Thames Television in London, England and has traveled to nineteen foreign countries.

Lawrence Carter was born in Dawson, Georgia and reared in Columbus, Ohio. He holds the B.A. degree from Virginia University of Lynchburg in social science and psychology, and the M. Div. degree in Theology, the S.T.M. degree in Pastoral Care, and the Ph.D. degree in Pastoral Psychology and Counseling from Boston University. He matriculated further at Andover Newton Theological School, The Ohio State University, Harvard University, Georgia State University, New York University, The University of Wisconsin at Madison, Brown University, Spelman College and George Washington University. Carter holds certifications in multi-disciplinary clinical training, clinical pastoral education, the editing of historical documents, community non-violent training, and grantsmanship. He is a licensed and ordained American Baptist minister, and has worked for the United Methodists in California. He was a 1994 Fulbright Scholar in Brazil, and twice a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow, in 1993 and 1996.

Prior to coming to Morehouse College, Lawrence Carter served as Associate Dean of Marsh Chapel, Executive Director of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Afro-American Center, Residential and Baptist Counselor at Boston University. He also team-taught a course on Orientation to Ministry at the Harvard University Divinity School. Later, he served as Coordinator of the Afro-American Studies Program at Simmons College.

Carter has recently published the second edition of Walking Integrity: Benjamin Elijah Mays as Mentor to Martin Luther King, Jr. with Mercer University Press. He is scheduled to publish On Jordan's Stormy Banks: The Crises of the African-American Male with Scholars Press. He has published forty articles which have appeared in The Journal of The Interdenominational Theological Center, The Journal of Pastoral Care, The Howard University Journal of Religious Thought, Black Family Magazine, The Oracle, Nexus, Freeing the Spirit, Boston University Currents, Morehouse College Bulletin, The Atlanta Inquirer, The Atlanta Constitution, The National Baptist Voice, Atlanta University's Phylon, The Boston Globe, The Journal of African Civilizations, and World Tribune. Carter has also published at the invitation of the National Council of Churches of Christ, USA

Lawrence Carter is the recipient of, and administrator for, numerous budgets, fellowships, gifts, and grants. Under his auspices, the national Council of Churches established a three-million-dollar Ecumenical AmeriCorps Scholarship Awards Program at King Chapel. He also founded the four-hundred and fifty-member Martin Luther King, Jr. Chapel Assistants Pre-seminarians' Program at Morehouse in 1979, encouraging young men and women to seek mainline seminary training. He has raised over one-hundred fifty- thousand dollars in scholarship funds for the Morehouse Chapel Assistants. Carter solicited from the National Baptist Convention, U.S.A., Inc. a gift of one-hundred-thousand dollars to erect the only statue in the state of Georgia honoring Martin Luther King, Jr. It stands on the Plaza of the King Chapel at Morehouse College. He has organized and funded eleven national conferences at Boston University, Morehouse College and at Abyssinian Baptist Church. Carter is the founder and sole fundraiser for Morehouse College's International Hall of Honor, which consists of eighty-four original oil portraits of distinguished leaders in the civil rights nonviolent movement. The portraits by Ho eun Chung are valued at over five-hundred thousand dollars.

Carter has received forty-seven honors and proclamations, including Faculty Member of the Year in 1985; Leadership Atlanta 1986; six times elected delegate to international religious assemblies; and Bible Study Leader for the Sixth Assembly of the World Council of Churches in Vancouver, Canada as well as the Eleventh Baptist Youth World Conference of the Baptist World Alliance in Glasgow, Scotland.

Carter is Sublime Prince, 32nd degree of the Prince Hall Masons. He is also a member of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc.

Lawrence Carter is married to Dr. Marva Griffin Carter. Mrs. Carter is Assistant Professor of Music History and Literature at Georgia State University. The Carters are the parents of one son, Lawrence Edward Carter, Jr., a fourteen-year-old sixth-generation Georgian.