ABHS has Black History month resources including a bulletin insert entitled “Liberty To Vote,” that can be downloaded from our ‘For Churches’ page. In addition a recent issue of the American Baptist Quarterly (Vol. 2, summer, 2013) has articles related to black history. Individual issues of the ABQ can be purchased by calling ABHS at 678-547-6680.
Recently we found a volume written by George W. Williams (1849-1891) who was born in Pennsylvania (a free state), and was a soldier before entering Howard University in 1869. As the first black student at Newton Theological Institute he graduated in 1874, and was ordained and installed as the pastor of Twelfth Baptist Church in Boston. After moving to Ohio, he was elected to the House of Representative of the Ohio General Assembly for a term.
His enduring legacy is as an antislavery activist and writer, having authored the first history of African Americans in the United States. ABHS has a first edition of this book entitled History of the Negro Race in America 1619-1880 which includes a chapter on ‘Colored Baptists of America.’ This
two volume book can befound on-line at https://archive.org/details/historyofnegrora00willrich.
He is also notable for his travels to the Belgium Congo in 1891, where he saw the horrible condition of slaves working on rubber plantations and wrote Open Letter to …Leopold, King of the Belgians.
The definitive biography of Williams is by John Hope Franklin, George Washington Williams: A Biography.
The accompanying photos come from the book History of the Negro Race in America (1882).
