ABSTRACT
During the last decades of the nineteenth century , the Reverend Joseph A. Booker, a powerful figure among southern black Baptists, regularly rode trains across rural stretches of his native state of Arkansas in search of dollars. Year in and year out, Booker visited black churches, homes, and schools to raise money for the three Little Rock institutions directly under his charge. He was pastor of First Baptist Church, one of the South’s largest and oldest black congregations; president of Arkansas Baptist College, the only black Baptist college in the state; and an editor of the Baptist Vanguard, the largest black weekly in Arkansas.
