The Cyclopedia of the Colored Baptists of Alabama: Their Leaders and Their Work

by Charles Octavius Boothe

(b) We have been improved by our public schools. It is a strange providence which, in our public school system, now returns upon the black man something of the interest due him in consideration of unrewarded labors. These schools have given us some choice men and women, who are strong in the work of the church. However, it is in place to say that we have not derived from our public school system all the good which it is capable of bestowing, first, because poor teachers have far too often been put upon the people. But, on the other hand, there has been loss because we have not properly appreciated our needs and opportunities, as considered from an educational point of view. The sessions of the public schools could be supplemented and extended in most cases so as to cover six or eight months of each year.

(c) The Publication Society has rendered substantial aid in the gift of books to our ministers and Sunday Schools as well as by the personal touch and teaching of their Sunday School Missionaries.

(d) The Missionary Societies of the Baptist women of Chicago and Boston have done a great work among us. Their good missionaries, such as Misses Moore, Knapp, Voss and others whose names will ever be precious to our people, have given themselves to work among our women and girls. They have breathed into our home life their beautiful piety, and they have acquainted our mission bands and church workers with the latest and best methods of labor. We have seen with their eyes and felt with their hearts.

First Baptist Church, Selma, Ala. C. J. Hardy, Pastor.

(e) The Selma University, with one exception, is the source of our greatest blessing. It is simply impossible to estimate the good that has come to Alabama Baptists out of this institution. What it has done is beyond the power of calculation. Only Omniscience can reckon up the good effects of its power upon the people. God be praised for Selma University! When we began the school in 1878, we hadn’t one single graduate in our midst. Since that time graduates have gone forth as follows:

1884.

R. T. Pollard, S. A. Stone, W. W. Posey, T. H. Posey, R. B. Hudson, L. J. Green, C. R. Rodgers, A. A. Bowie, D. T. Gully, A. W. Hines, and Miss Washington, now Mrs. R. T. Pollard.

1885.

J. A. Anthony, W. E Large, J. H. Eason and Mrs. Thompson.