Charles Octavius Boothe was born a slave. He learned to read, was converted, and turned his able mind to the “uplift” of African Americans living under the post-Reconstruction, Jim Crow regime. He planted churches, started schools and colleges, assembled churches’ resources to send missionaries, and much more. His work displays his keen attention to the weak, the powerless, the “foolish” (1 Cor. 1); his efforts betray his conviction that all people ought to have access to the beauty of God via the study of him.

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For further reading…
- "Plain Theology for Plain People," Charles Octavius Boothe (with an introduction by Dr. Walter R. Strickland II, Assistant Professor of Systematic and Contextual Theology at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary) [https://smile.amazon.com/Plain-Theology-People-Lexham-Classics/dp/1683590341] – the Works Cited section at the end of Strickland’s preface provides other resources for further reading
- "The Cyclopedia of the Colored Baptists of Alabama: Their Leaders and Their Work," Charles Octavius Boothe [https://archive.org/details/cyclopediaofcolo00boot/page/n5/mode/2up]. See this work if you want to get a glimpse of the growth of African American institutions in the post-Reconstruction era. It is amazing to read the story that unfolds in these pages—a people with nothing grows into a robust community under the most adverse circumstances.