DeForest Soaries

Reverend DeForest Blake "Buster" Soaries, Jr. is an African-American Baptist minister, author and public advocate, from Montclair, New Jersey. He is the former Secretary of State of New Jersey and former chairman of the federal Election Assistance Commission. He was the senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Lincoln Gardens in Somerset, New Jersey, a position he had held since November 1990 until his retirement from the church in June 2021.