Richard Henry Boyd

How this work helped shape America

Born enslaved as Dick Gray in Mississippi in 1843, Richard Henry Boyd chose his own name after emancipation and built a far-reaching Black publishing enterprise. In 1896 he and nine associates chartered Nashville's National Baptist Publishing Board. Over the next twenty-five years, the company became the nation's largest Black publishing enterprise, supplying churches with religious literature and other goods while employing more than 110 Black workers. Boyd also supported banking, newspaper publishing and a Black doll company, using interconnected businesses to strengthen Black employment, ownership and institutional independence.