American Baptist College - Founded in 1924
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On September 14, 1924, the American Baptist College opened its doors. Like some other historically Black colleges, the American Baptist College got its start from a religious organization.
In 1913 the National Baptist Convention, an organization of Black baptists, commissioned a committee to study the idea of creating a school for its ministers. By 1924, the doors of the school were open and it would go on to educate many key leaders in the Civil Rights Movement in Nashville, including Congressman John Lewis, Dr. Bernard Lafayette, Dr. Julius Scruggs, Jim Bevels and William Barbee.
But, the story of the founding of the National Baptist Convention is even more compelling.
National Baptist Convention
The National Baptist convention traces its founding to Saturday, November 22, 1880 in Montgomery, Alabama.
One hundred and fifty-one people met to form the Foreign Mission Convention to help spread the gospel of Jesus Christ to those in Africa. Six years later, in 1886, another 600 delegates from seventeen states met in St. Louis, Missouri to form the National Baptist Convention. Later the National Baptist Education Convention was formed, in 1893. The three organizations merged in 1895 at Friendship Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia. Adam Daniel Williams, grandfather of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was present at that meeting in Atlanta.
Reverend Williams became “president of the Atlanta Baptist Ministers' Union, chairman of both the executive board and the finance committee of the General State Baptist Convention, and a member of the Convention's educational board and its Baptist Young Peoples' Union and Sunday School board.” Williams was active in the fight for justice…on the front lines with people like Henry McNeal Turner (who was a famous pro-African leader in the African Methodist Episcopal Church). Williams was the pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia and he grew the congregation from just 13 people, when he arrived, to 400 by 1903.
He was active in the Equal Rights Movement long before his grandson would become a leader in the Civil Rights Movement, and he arguably paved the way and was an example for his grandson as he fought for voting rights and equal treatment in the late 1800s and the early 1900s.
But, before him, there was his father who was born in slavery in the 1800s in Georgia. Willis Williams was a preacher and was a part of Shiloh Baptist Church in Greene County, Georgia. While he did not know it, his desire to preach and the fire it created inside of him, would make his son want to become a preacher and would pave the way for his great-grandson to become one of the most famous preachers of all-time.
References:
“A Rich History”. American Baptist College. Accessed online, November 7, 2022.
History of the National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc. The National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc. Accessed November 7, 2022.
The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Educational Institute. “National Baptist Convention (NBC) Biography - September 28, 1895”. Stanford University. Accessed November 7, 20222. https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/national-baptist-convention-nbc
The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Educational Institute. Williams, Adam Daniel (A. D.) Biography - January 2, 1863 to March 21, 1931”. Stanford University. Accessed November 7, 20222. https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/williams-adam-daniel-d