The First District is lead by Bishop Richard Franklin Norris, a native of Atlanta, Georgia, and born the sixth of eleven children to the Rev. David Norris and Mrs. Mabel E. Brown Norris. The Norris family moved to Philadelphia, where the Bishop graduated from West Philadelphia High School. He attended Morris Brown University, and later transferred to Rutgers University where he received a baccalaureate. Having received the call to ministry at age 15, he attended the New Brunswick Theological Seminary, and then the New York Theological Seminary, graduating with a Doctorate of Ministry. To date, he has received honorary doctorates from the Lee Theological Seminary, and Monrovia College. His fellowships have included the Ford Foundation Urban Training Center (Chicago), the Lilly Foundation, the New York City Mission Society, and the New York Theological Seminary.

Bishop Norris has pastored throughout the First Episcopal District of the African Methodist Episcopal Church including Pennsylvania, Bermuda, New Jersey, New York and Philadelphia, where he pastored Mother Bethel AME Church from 1986 to 1993, and later St. Matthew AME Church from 1993 to 2000.
 

In June 2000 at the Forty-Sixth Quadrennial General Conference, Bishop Norris was elected and consecrated the 116th Bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, presiding over the14th Episcopal District of West Africa, which includes Nigeria, Togo, Benin, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Cote D'Ivoire. There, Bishop Norris was an able and effective leader in the spiritual and educational development of the people and church. To his credit, he rebuilt several churches, schools and universities that had been destroyed as a result of civil unrest.

In June, 2004, the Forty-Seventh Quadrennial General Conference was convened, and Bishop Richard Norris was then appointed to the First District serving the eastern half of Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, New England (including Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut), and Bermuda.

For more then 30 years, Bishop Norris has been married to Mary Ann Hill Norris, the First Episcopal District Supervisor. Bishop and Mrs. Norris are the proud parents of two adult sons: Richard II, a computer executive, accomplished musician, and music director of the First District, and the Rev. Marcellus Norris, Pastor of Historic Bethel AME Church in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania.