The First Colored Baptist Church in North America. Constituted at Savannah, Georgia, January 20, A.D. 1788. With Biographical Sketches of the Pastors

Philadelphia: Printed by J. B. Lippincott Company, 1888. 1st ed. Hardcover. Fine. 7 photos and illustrations (including frontis), illustrations, 264p. Original blue cloth. 19 cm. Ends of backstrip and corners slightly rubbed. A few faint spots on cover. Minor foxing on page edges. Original floral endpapers still attractive and showing only modest wear. An unusually nice copy of this scarce book. First African Baptist Church, as it is now known, in Savannah is generally regarded as the first African American church in North America. The church claims 1773 as the date of their organization. Simms, the author of this book, was born into slavery in Savannah (truncated) in 1823 and baptized at this church in 1841 and apparently expelled from that church soon after for lack of humility. Simms became a minister and served at least briefly in the Georgia House of Representatives during Reconstruction. In 1868 he established a newspaper (Southern Radical and Freedmen's Journal or Freemen's Standard), apparently the first African American-owned newspaper in Savannah. (Inventory #: 93648)