R. H. Boyd
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Richard Henry Boyd (March 15, 1843 – August 22, 1922) was an
African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ensl ...
minister and businessman who was the founder and head of the National Baptist Publishing Board and a founder of the National Baptist Convention of America, Inc.


Early life

Boyd was born into
slavery Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
at the B. A. Gray
plantation A plantation is an agricultural estate, generally centered on a plantation house, meant for farming that specializes in cash crops, usually mainly planted with a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. The ...
in
Noxubee County, Mississippi Noxubee County is a county located in the U.S. state of Mississippi. As of the 2010 census, its population was 11,545. Its county seat is Macon. The name is derived from the Choctaw word ''nakshobi'' meaning "to stink". Geography According t ...
, on March 15, 1843. He was one of ten children of his mother, Indiana Dixon. He was originally named Dick Gray, having been given the surname of his slave master.Nolan Thompson
Boyd, Richard Henry
in Handbook of Texas Online
Lois C. McDougald

, in ''A Profile of African Americans in Tennessee History'', 1995; retrieved from
Tennessee State University Tennessee State University (Tennessee State, Tenn State, or TSU) is a public historically black land-grant university in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. Founded in 1912, it is the only state-funded historically black university in Tenness ...
website, August 8, 2009
As a child, he moved twice with his master's household, to
Lowndes County, Mississippi Lowndes County is a county on the eastern border of the U.S. state of Mississippi. As of the 2010 United States Census, the population was 59,779. Its county seat is Columbus. The county is named for U.S. Congressman and slave owner William Jo ...
in 1848, and to
Claiborne Parish, Louisiana Claiborne Parish (french: Paroisse de Claiborne) is a parish located in the northwestern section of the U.S. state of Louisiana. The parish was formed in 1828, and was named for the first Louisiana governor, William C. C. Claiborne. As of the ...
in 1853.Joe Early, Jr.
Richard Henry Boyd: Shaper of Black Baptist Identity
''Baptist History and Heritage'', Summer-Fall, 2007
In 1859 he was sold to Benoni W. Gray, who took him to a cotton plantation near Brenham in
Washington County, Texas Washington County is a county in Texas. As of the 2020 census, the population was 35,805. Its county seat is Brenham, which is located along U.S. Highway 290, 72 miles northwest of Houston. The county was created in 1835 as a municipality of ...
. During the
American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states ...
, he served Gray as a bodyservant in the Confederate Army. After Gray and his two eldest sons were killed and a third son was badly wounded in fighting near Chattanooga, Tennessee, Boyd returned to
Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...
with the surviving son. In Texas, he took over management of the Gray plantation, successfully producing and selling
cotton Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus '' Gossypium'' in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure cellulose, and can contain minor pe ...
. Following
emancipation Emancipation generally means to free a person from a previous restraint or legal disability. More broadly, it is also used for efforts to procure economic and social rights, political rights or equality, often for a specifically disenfranch ...
, he also worked as a cowboy and in a
sawmill A sawmill (saw mill, saw-mill) or lumber mill is a facility where logs are cut into lumber. Modern sawmills use a motorized saw to cut logs lengthwise to make long pieces, and crosswise to length depending on standard or custom sizes (dimensi ...
. In 1867, he changed his name to Richard Henry Boyd; Richard ("Dick") had been his grandfather's first name, but there is no record of the reasons for his choice of his new
middle name In various cultures, a middle name is a portion of a personal name that is written between the person's first given name and their surname. A middle name is often abbreviated and is then called middle initial or just initial. A person may be ...
and surname. After emancipation, Boyd, who did not learn the
alphabet An alphabet is a standardized set of basic written graphemes (called letters) that represent the phonemes of certain spoken languages. Not all writing systems represent language in this way; in a syllabary, each character represents a syllab ...
until age 22, began a process of
self-education Autodidacticism (also autodidactism) or self-education (also self-learning and self-teaching) is education without the guidance of masters (such as teachers and professors) or institutions (such as schools). Generally, autodidacts are individu ...
. He used '' Webster's Blue-Backed Speller'' and '' McGuffey's First Reader'' as texts and hired a
white White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White o ...
girl to teach him. In about 1869 or 1870 he enrolled in
Bishop College Bishop College was a historically black college, founded in Marshall, Texas, United States, in 1881 by the Baptist Home Mission Society. It was intended to serve students in east Texas, where the majority of the black population lived at the t ...
in
Marshall, Texas Marshall is a city in the U.S. state of Texas. It is the county seat of Harrison County and a cultural and educational center of the Ark-La-Tex region. At the 2020 U.S. census, the population of Marshall was 23,392; The population of the Greater ...
, an
American Baptist Home Mission Society The American Baptist Home Mission Society is a Christian missionary society. Its main predecessor the Home Mission Society was established in New York City in 1832 to operate in the American frontier, with the stated mission "to preach the Gospe ...
school for the education of freed slaves. He attended Bishop for two years, but did not graduate. Later in life he received
honorary doctoral degree An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or ''ad hono ...
s from Guadalupe College and Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical State College. In 1868, Boyd married Laura Thomas, who died less than a year later. In 1871 he married Harriett Albertine Moore.


Religious career

In 1869 Boyd was baptized in Hopewell Baptist Church in Navasota, Texas. Shortly thereafter, he felt called to the ministry and was
ordained Ordination is the process by which individuals are consecrated, that is, set apart and elevated from the laity class to the clergy, who are thus then authorized (usually by the denominational hierarchy composed of other clergy) to perform ...
as a minister in 1871. Subsequently, he served as a pastor to several Texas churches, including the Nineveh Baptist Church in Grimes City, the Union Baptist Church in Palestine, and the Mount Zion Baptist Church in
San Antonio ("Cradle of Freedom") , image_map = , mapsize = 220px , map_caption = Interactive map of San Antonio , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = United States , subdivision_type1= State , subdivision_name1 = Texas , subdivision_t ...
, and helped to organize other churches in Palestine (including South Union Missionary Baptist Church), Waverly, Old Danville, Navasota, and Crockett. In 1870 he helped organize the first black
Baptist Baptists form a major branch of Protestantism distinguished by baptizing professing Christian believers only ( believer's baptism), and doing so by complete immersion. Baptist churches also generally subscribe to the doctrines of soul compe ...
association in Texas, the Texas Negro Baptist Convention, and served as its missionary and educational secretary from 1870 to 1874. In 1876 he represented black Texas Baptists at the
Centennial Exposition The Centennial International Exhibition of 1876, the first official World's Fair to be held in the United States, was held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from May 10 to November 10, 1876, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the signing of the ...
in
Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...
. While in Texas, Boyd became concerned that the Sunday school materials and other publications of the Southern Baptist Convention and
American Baptist Publication Society The American Baptist Publication Society is a historic building at 1420–1422 Chestnut Street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was built in 1896 on the site of the former headquarters of the American Baptist Publication Society, which had been ...
, which were produced by
white people White is a racialized classification of people and a skin color specifier, generally used for people of European origin, although the definition can vary depending on context, nationality, and point of view. Description of populations as ...
, did not meet the needs of African American Baptists. He became interested in publishing black-authored materials for use in churches and Sunday schools. Because this view was not shared by all members of the Texas Negro Baptist Convention, in 1893 Boyd left that association to form the General Missionary Baptist Convention of Texas. In 1894 and 1895 he produced his first pamphlets for use in black Baptist Sunday schools. At the 1895 annual meeting of National Baptist Convention in
St. Louis, Missouri St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...
, he pressed for the creation of a publishing board for the black Baptists and received the support of Elias C. Morris, president of the National Baptist Convention. In 1896 he resigned from his church positions in Texas and moved to Nashville to establish the National Baptist Publishing Board, arriving there on November 7, 1896.


National Baptist Publishing Board

Boyd did not have National Baptist Convention financial support to start the Publishing Board, so he financed its establishment himself, using
real estate Real estate is property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this (also) an item of real property, (more general ...
in Texas that he owned as
collateral Collateral may refer to: Business and finance * Collateral (finance), a borrower's pledge of specific property to a lender, to secure repayment of a loan * Marketing collateral, in marketing and sales Arts, entertainment, and media * ''Collate ...
, and received assistance with printing from the white Southern Baptist Convention, which had its main publishing operations in Nashville. The National Baptist Publishing Board fulfilled Boyd's goal of providing black Baptists with religious materials written by other black Baptists, primarily
periodical A periodical literature (also called a periodical publication or simply a periodical) is a published work that appears in a new edition on a regular schedule. The most familiar example is a newspaper, but a magazine or a journal are also example ...
s and Sunday School materials, but also including some books. At the beginning, the Publishing Board took over responsibility for publishing the ''National Baptist Magazine'' and it launched the new ''Teacher's Monthly'' in 1897. The Publishing Board started making a profit as early as the first quarter of 1897, when it distributed more than 180,000 copies of published materials, and it grew increasingly profitable over time. In 1898, in collaboration with nine other men, Boyd incorporated the National Baptist Publishing Board under a
Tennessee Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...
state charter. Under the charter, the Publishing Board was owned by Boyd and governed by a self-perpetuating board of trustees.Paul Harvey (2009
Richard Henry Boyd (1855-1922)
in the ''Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture''
The National Baptist Publishing Board became the principal source of religious publications for black Baptists worldwide. By 1906, it was the largest African American publishing company in the United States. The business employed as many as 110 workers. In its first 18 years, it issued more than 128 million periodicals. It is credited with being the first publisher of the old songs of Negro slaves, and it produced more than 25
songbook A song book is a book containing lyrics for songs. Song books may be simple composition books or spiral-bound notebooks. Music publishers also produced printed editions for group singing. Such volumes were used in the United States by piano manuf ...
s and
hymnal A hymnal or hymnary is a collection of hymns, usually in the form of a book, called a hymnbook (or hymn book). Hymnals are used in congregational singing. A hymnal may contain only hymn texts (normal for most hymnals for most centuries of Chr ...
s by 1921, including ''Golden Gems: A Song Book for the Church Choir, the Pew, and Sunday School'' (1901) and ''The National Baptist Hymnal'' (1903). The board's publications are considered to have played a key role in establishing an African American Baptist religious and racial identity in the United States.


Splitting of the National Baptist Convention

In 1915 the success of the Publishing Board under Boyd's leadership led to a split within the National Baptist Convention. Pastors and other leaders within the convention were suspicious of the Publishing Board and sought greater control, while Boyd asserted that the Publishing Board was independent. Boyd, who served as the National Baptist Convention secretary of missions from 1896 to 1914 while also leading the Publishing Board, claimed that the Publishing Board regularly contributed some of its profits to the
missionary A missionary is a member of a religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Thomas Hale 'On Being a Mi ...
work of the National Baptist Convention, but this was disputed.Dr. Wilson Fallin, Jr.
History of the National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc.
, National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc. website, accessed August 10, 2009
Following confrontations at the annual meeting of the National Baptist Convention in
Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...
in 1915, Boyd and his supporters formed the
National Baptist Convention of America The National Baptist Convention of America International, Inc., (NBCA Intl or NBCA) more commonly known as the National Baptist Convention of America or sometimes the Boyd Convention, is a Christian denomination based in the United States. It is ...
, which became known informally as "National Baptist Convention, Unincorporated," and was sometimes derisively called the "Boyd National Convention." The leaders remaining in the original convention incorporated in 1916, adopting the name
National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc. The National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc., more commonly known as the National Baptist Convention (NBC USA or NBC), is a primarily African American Baptist Christian denomination in the United States. It is headquartered at the Baptist World Ce ...
The National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc.
sued - A lawsuit is a proceeding by a party or parties against another in the civil court of law. The archaic term "suit in law" is found in only a small number of laws still in effect today. The term "lawsuit" is used in reference to a civil acti ...
unsuccessfully to obtain ownership of the Publishing Board and subsequently created its own Sunday School publishing board.


Other business activities

Boyd's business interests extended beyond the Publishing Board. The National Baptist Church Supply Company, which he established in 1902, sold a diverse range of supplies for churches, including
pew A pew () is a long bench seat or enclosed box, used for seating members of a congregation or choir in a church, synagogue or sometimes a courtroom. Overview The first backless stone benches began to appear in English churches in the thirt ...
s, fans, pulpits, and pipe organs. Another of his business activities was design and sale of African American
doll A doll is a model typically of a human or humanoid character, often used as a toy for children. Dolls have also been used in traditional religious rituals throughout the world. Traditional dolls made of materials such as clay and wood are foun ...
s. His National Negro Doll Company is believed to have pioneered the marketing of black dolls for black children for the purpose of black pride. Boyd started selling black dolls imported from Europe in 1908, after experiencing difficulty finding suitable dolls for the children in his family. In 1911 his National Negro Doll Company began to manufacture dolls. He was quoted as contrasting his dolls with Negro dolls then produced by white-owned businesses, saying: "These dolls are not made of that disgraceful and humiliating type that we have grown accustomed to seeing Negro dolls made of. They represent the intelligent and refined Negro of the day, rather than the type of toy that is usually given to children and, as a rule, used as a
scarecrow A scarecrow is a decoy or mannequin, often in the shape of a human. Humanoid scarecrows are usually dressed in old clothes and placed in open fields to discourage birds from disturbing and feeding on recently cast seed and growing crops.Lesley ...
." The doll company was not profitable, and the company ceased operations around 1915. In Nashville, he was one of the founders and first president of the One-Cent Savings and Trust Company Bank, a
bank A bank is a financial institution that accepts deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital markets. Because ...
expressly intended to serve the financial needs of African American depositors who believed that white-owned banks looked down on their small deposits. Although the minimum deposit was actually 10 cents, the name "One-Cent" was chosen to emphasize that every customer was important, no matter how little money they had. The bank, which opened its doors in 1904 and reported
assets In financial accounting, an asset is any resource owned or controlled by a business or an economic entity. It is anything (tangible or intangible) that can be used to produce positive economic value. Assets represent value of ownership that can ...
of $80,000 as of 1912, was still in business as of 2009 as the Citizens Savings Bank and Trust Company.Linda T. Wynn
Citizens Savings Bank and Trust Company
in ''A Profile of African Americans in Tennessee History'', 1995; retrieved from
Tennessee State University Tennessee State University (Tennessee State, Tenn State, or TSU) is a public historically black land-grant university in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. Founded in 1912, it is the only state-funded historically black university in Tenness ...
website, August 8, 2009


Civil rights activities

Boyd was a public advocate for African American
civil rights Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life o ...
. As early as the 1890s he voiced his concern that whites planned to reverse the civil rights gains that African Americans had made in the years after the Civil War, and in subsequent years he worked against the
Jim Crow laws The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United States. Other areas of the United States were affected by formal and informal policies of segregation as well, but many states outside the Sout ...
enacted to enforce
segregation Segregation may refer to: Separation of people * Geographical segregation, rates of two or more populations which are not homogenous throughout a defined space * School segregation * Housing segregation * Racial segregation, separation of humans ...
.


Nashville streetcar boycott

After the Tennessee General Assembly enacted a 1905 law to segregate Nashville's
streetcar A tram (called a streetcar or trolley in North America) is a rail vehicle that travels on tramway tracks on public urban streets; some include segments on segregated right-of-way. The tramlines or networks operated as public transport a ...
system, local black leaders were determined to protest the law through a boycott of the public transportation system. When the law first went into effect in July, the boycott was effective, as few blacks were riding streetcars. Boyd, then head of the local chapter of the
National Negro Business League The National Negro Business League (NNBL) was an American organization founded in Boston in 1900 by Booker T. Washington to promote the interests of African-American businesses. The mission and main goal of the National Negro Business League wa ...
, joined with other prominent citizens to promote and formalize the boycott. Because many blacks needed the streetcar system to travel to and from work, it proved difficult to maintain participation in the boycott. To help their fellow black citizens avoid using Nashville's public streetcars, Boyd joined with lawyer James C. Napier and funeral home director Preston Taylor to establish a rival black-owned public transit system, the Union Transportation Company. The new company began service on September 29, 1905, operating five steam buses. These vehicles lacked the power needed to climb some of the city's hills, so the company acquired a fleet of 14 electric buses. To avoid buying
electricity Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as describ ...
from a white-owned utility, the transportation company powered the buses with a generator in the basement of the Publishing Board building. The company had limited financial resources, was not able to effectively meet the transportation needs of Nashville's geographically dispersed black population, and was handicapped by a
tax A tax is a compulsory financial charge or some other type of levy imposed on a taxpayer (an individual or legal entity) by a governmental organization in order to fund government spending and various public expenditures (regional, local, or n ...
on electric streetcars that the city of Nashville enacted in 1906 specifically to combat the black-owned business. The Union Transportation Company went out of business within a year, by which time the boycott had been largely abandoned. Although the boycott was ultimately unsuccessful, its long duration was one source of inspiration for bus boycotts in the 1950s.Paul Harvey, Richard Henry Boyd: Black Business and Religion in the Jim Crow South, pages 51-67 i
Portraits of African American Life Since 1865
Nina Mjagkij, editor, 2003. Rowman & Littlefield. ,
Boyd, Richard Henry
in ''African-American Business Leaders: A Biographical Dictionary'', by John N. Ingham and Lynne B. Feldman, Greenwood Publishing Group, 1993.


Writings

Boyd wrote fourteen books and numerous pamphlets. His books included: * ''Baptist Catechism and Doctrine'' (1899) * ''National Baptist Pastor's Guide'' (1900) * ''National Jubilee Melody Songbook'' (no date) * ''Plantation Melody Songs'' *
The Separate or "Jim Crow" Car Laws
' (1909) * ''Theological Kernals'' * ''An Outline of Negro Baptist History'' * ''The Story of the Publishing Board''


Death and legacy

Boyd died in Nashville of a cerebral hemorrhage on August 22, 1922. His funeral was held in
Ryman Auditorium Ryman Auditorium (also known as Grand Ole Opry House and Union Gospel Tabernacle) is a 2,362-seat live-performance venue located at 116 Rep. John Lewis Way North, in Nashville, Tennessee. It is best known as the home of the ''Grand Ole Opry'' fr ...
and was attended by several thousand people. He is buried in Greenwood Cemetery in Nashville. R. H. and Harriett Boyd were the parents of nine children, of whom six survived to adulthood. A son, Henry Allen Boyd, was a leader in the Nashville African-American community and a cofounder of the '' Nashville Globe'' newspaper, and succeeded his father as head of the National Baptist Publishing Board.Paul Harvey
Henry Allen Boyd
in the ''Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture''
The National Baptist Publishing Board was renamed the R. H. Boyd Publishing Corporation in his honor in 2000.Inductees
Music City Walk of Fame website
Workshops & Scholarships
R. H. Boyd Publishing Corporation website
The corporation and the R. H. Boyd Family Endowment Fund offer fellowships in his name for African-Americans engaged in graduate study. In April 2009 he was posthumously inducted into the Music City Walk of Fame in Nashville in honor of his contributions to preserving the music of former slaves and their descendants.Ceremonies
Music City Walk of Fame website


References


External links


R. H. Boyd Publishing Corporation website

Citizens Savings Bank & Trust Company website



Further reading

* Bobby L. Lovett, 1996. ''A Black Man’s Dream: The First Hundred Years, The Story of R. H. Boyd''. Mega Publishing Company. , * ''How It Came to Be: The Boyd Family’ Contribution to African American Religious Publishing from the 19th to the 21st Century'' (2007) * Paul Harvey, "'The Holy Spirit Come to Us . . .': Richard H. Boyd and Black Religious Activism in Nashville," in ''Tennessee History: the Land, the People, and the Culture'', ed. Carroll Van West (1998), 270–286. {{DEFAULTSORT:Boyd, Richard Henry African-American history of Tennessee African-American history of Texas African-American publishers (people) American publishers (people) American cattlemen 19th-century American slaves Clergy of historically African-American Christian denominations People from Nashville, Tennessee People from Noxubee County, Mississippi People from Washington County, Texas 1843 births 1922 deaths Bishop College alumni 19th-century Baptist ministers from the United States Writers from Mississippi Writers from Tennessee Writers from Texas Baptists from Tennessee Baptists from Mississippi 20th-century African-American people 20th-century Baptist ministers from the United States