Page:Journal of Negro History, vol. 7.djvu/471

 Negroes connected with the First Baptist Church, Washington, sent $15 and, no doubt, some others contributed.

It is not quite clear, however, why William Crane, still representing the Richmond African Baptist Missionary Society in the Convention and the Rev. James B. Taylor, a delegate from Virginia and later the biographer of Lott Cary, did not challenge the statement that so little had been accomplished during the eight years of the existence of the African mission.

The Convention then adopted the following recommendation of the Committee:

It was not until 1832 that the Convention saw the error of its conclusion and declared that it must depend "principally on colored persons, as missionaries and school teachers, in Africa." Despite this color-phobia of the Baptists, nothing can explain away the fact that Lott Cary had lived helpfully and died honorably. Gurley and Hervey would make him a man of genius who, had he possessed educational advantages, would have won a worldwide reputation as preacher, as general or as chief magistrate. This square-faced, keen-eyed, reserved, cautious black held nothing back. From Charles City County to Richmond, from slave to freedman, from profligate to prophet, from sinner to saint, is a record that might have