History of the First African Baptist Church, From Its Organization, January 20th, 1788, to July 1st, 1888 . .

Savannah, GA: The Morning News Print, 1888. Good. 8¼" x 6". Green cloth over boards, title gilt. Pp. [5], [A]-E, [6], iv-v, [blank page], 360. Good: Ex-library with remnants of call number to spine, bookplate, due cards and embossed stamp on title page; moderately shaken, boards moderately worn with losses at spine tips, ffep heavily notated.

This is another copy of Love's History with several outstanding associations.

A partially obscured inscription on the front pastedown shows that this particular copy was presented by R.R. Wright to D.C. Suggs. Richard Robert Wright, Sr., who wrote part of the book's introduction, was born into slavery in Georgia in 1855 and was valedictorian of the first graduating class of Atlanta University, now known as the HBCU Clark Atlanta. He became an educator and newspaper editor who went on to serve as the first president of the Georgia Industrial College for Col*red Youths (GICCY), the first public institution of higher learning for African Americans in the state. Under Wright's leadership, GICCY hosted renowned lecturers including Booker T. Washington, Mary McLeod Bethune, and Mary Church Terrell. Wright later founded the first Black-owned bank in Philadelphia and co-founded the first organization of Black-owned banks in the country.

The recipient of the book, Dr. Daniel Cato Suggs, was born in Wilson, North Carolina in 1865. He was a wealthy Black businessman, active in real estate, and a teacher in the public school systems of North Carolina. He served as a professor at GICCY before being elected president in 1917 of Livingston College, a private, HBCU in Salisbury, North Carolina, noted for its strong affiliation with the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church.

This volume also contains a bookplate from Bennett College in Greensboro. Founded in 1873 as a normal school to educate freedmen and train both men and women as teachers, Bennett is now a private HBCU liberal arts college for women.

There is yet another interesting facet to this copy: the front free endpaper has two pages of handwritten notes regarding a speech given by David B. Hill in Savannah in 1892 as he was campaigning to be the Democratic candidate for United States President. We found the entirety of the speech's text in a newspaper account online and note the oddity of the possibility of a Southern African American attending a Democratic candidate' speech at that time.

OCLC shows six holdings of the physical book over four entries. A unique copy, with wonderful associations, of Love's important history of the First African Baptist Church.