A Call to Greatness: the Story of the Founding of the Progressive National Baptist Convention (collectible, Signed By Author) [signed] [first edition]

An important contribution to Black Church History in America. Very well researched and documented, it details the unfolding the the events leading to the organization of the Progressive National Baptist Convention forty years ago. This definitive study should put to rest speculation and misinformation surrounding the founding of the PNBC and its founder. “From the distinct, unique, and even privileged vantage point of someone who lived close to the historical drama about which he writes, William D. Booth has produced a most persuasive and moving essay about the actual founder of the Progressive National Baptist Convention. Written in an impassioned style, one that conveys to the reader the tangled web of emotions that attended the unfolding of the events leading to the organization of the PNBC 40 years ago (and even now the myriad portrayals of its origins), he provides a convincing statement that his father, L. Venchael Booth, a 1943 graduate of the Howard University School of Divinity, is to be recognized unequivocally as the pivotal, key, seminal figure in the creation of one of the nation’s most significant religious bodies. In the process, he implicitly prosecutes a question that most historians, professional and lay, should always take close to heart: By what criteria should someone be considered a founder? In the case of the PNBC story, William D. Booth provides a strong, cogent response, none more telling than the fact that L. Venchael Booth ‘set the date, set the time, set the place, set the program, issued the press releases, hosted the meeting, served as the principal advocate...authored the convention song, designed the initial seal, and identified the foundational scripture’ for the Progressive National Baptist Convention to come into being.” Dr. Clarence G. Newsome, Dean and Associate Professor of Church History Howard University School of Divinity, Howard University, Washington, D.C.