Why I Am a Baptist

Nashville: National Baptist Publishing Board, 1938. Very good.. 8pp. Original printed wrappers, stapled. Wrappers a bit dusty, mild rubbing and edge wear. The rare first edition of Dr. E.H. Borden's impassioned personal history and essay on why he identifies as a Baptist. At the time he wrote the present essay. Dr. Borden was serving as the pastor of the Live Oak Baptist Church in Beaumont, Texas. Born near Nova Scotia, Canada, Borden credits his early conversion to his mother, Susie M. Borden, but ultimately that his "personal choice and conviction were confirmed and enlightened by study." He then enumerates a dozen reasons he stands by his Baptist faith, ranging from "Because I am a Christian" to "I believe in the 'voluntariness of religion'" and "I believe in immersion, the immersion of one who has already surrendered his heart and life to Christ," among others.

Borden's work was published by the National Baptist Publishing Board, an important African American publishing house in Nashville. "R.H. Boyd believed strongly in the need for Black Baptists to produce their own religious materials, rather than continuing to depend on those supplied by white Baptist organizations. He founded the National Baptist Publishing Board in 1896 to print and distribute various periodicals, song and lesson books, and other spiritually themed titles. By 1930 the company was printing 20 different periodicals with a combined circulation of over 12.7 million.... Under R.H. Boyd's leadership, the National Baptist Publishing Board became a hub for a multitude of other Black business ventures in Nashville. Among the other companies Boyd helped to establish were the National Baptist Church Supply Company, the One-Cent Savings Bank (later renamed Citizens Savings Bank and Trust Company), the Negro Doll Company, the Union Transportation Company, and the Nashville Globe newspaper. All of these enterprises reflected and expanded on Boyd's mission to provide African Americans with greater control over their social, economic, and educational lives" - "R.H. Boyd and the National Baptist Publishing Board," Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of African American History & Culture's website. OCLC reports just two copies of the present work, at UC-Santa Barbara and the Southern Baptist Historical Library & Archives.