Tennessee II: Memphis
1913-1931: Tennessee II: Memphis
(More Entries, Links, and Publications Are Forthcoming)
--March 1913 Is scheduled to address the Memphis Knights of Pythias, according to a 3/21/13 NG article describing him as “pastor-elect of the Tabernacle Baptist Church”
--4/20/13 Assumes pastorate of the Tabernacle Baptist Church in Memphis, according to the NG
--4/29/13 Gives the principal address at the West Tennessee Medical College
--5/15/13 Speaks to the Southern Baptist Convention in St. Louis, praising white Southerners as “the best regulated portion of the white race” in terms of religion; receives a guarantee of $50,000 for a national black Baptist seminary from the SBC
--5/22/13 The New York Age expresses surprise at Griggs’s reported praise of white Southerners in his SBC address
--5/29/13 Disputes the description of his speech to the white Baptists in a 5/29/13 letter to the editor of the NYA
--Sept. 1913 Delivers a speech entitled “Thoughts for a New Era,” praising the cooperative efforts of the SBC and the NBC to establish a national black Baptist seminary, at the annual NBC meeting in Nashville
--9/21/13 D. Wellington Berry hails Griggs as the spiritual counterpart of Booker T. Washington in terms of conciliation with the white race in a Nashville Tennessean article
--Nov 1913 Addresses the Kentucky State Teachers’ Association in Louisville, along with Kelly Miller, according to a 11/15/13 piece in the IF
--1914 Publishes The Story of My Struggles (National Public Welfare League, Memphis)
--Feb 1914 Founds the National Sentiment-Moulding Bureau in Memphis, according to 2/21/14 article in the Chicago Defender
--2/5-2/6/14 The NBC Commission Concerning the Home Mission and Publishing Boards appoints C. H. Parrish, T. J. Searcy, and S. E. Griggs to a book committee “to negotiate for the transfer of copyrights, or to provide copyright in the name of the Publishing Board,” “to enter upon the [NBPB’s] premises, annul the contract, and prepare books and demand that these be substituted for the books whose copyrights were owned by R. H. Boyd,” and “to take charge of the [NBPB’s] book department, prepare books, order the publication of same, and substitute them in the place of the books that the publishing Board had already contracted to print” (Source: “The Actions of the Commission Concerning the Home and Publishing Boards, Held in the Chapel of the Publishing House, Feb 5 & 6, ’14, as Copied by J. Blaine Boyd and the Protests of the National Baptist Publishing Board against the Acts of the Commission,” n.p., n.d.)
--March 1914 Speaks about “Nature’s Great Dream with Reference to the American Negro” at the Central Baptist church in St. Louis and is said to be “arranging a tour of the country for the purpose of carrying to the Negro race a new message of hope,” that will extend as far south as Galveston and as far north as Denver, according to a 3/14/14 notice in the IF
http://docs.newsbank.com/s/HistArchive/ahnpdoc/EANX/12DCC5EC68678180/0D0CB5FCC016CE55
--Early Sept 1914 attends a meeting of officers of the NBC and the SBC about the establishment of a national black Baptist seminary
--9/9-9/14/14 Attends the 34th Annual Session of the NBC at Philadelphia’s Baptist churches, explains “in detail and in a satisfactory manner his work in connection with the Orion Publishing Company, concerning which much complaint has been made,” a “touching appeal” to which delegates respond with $157 “to assist Dr. Griggs arrange his financial difficulties,” is immediately thereafter unanimously endorsed by the NBC in response to a motion by Dr. Wm. A. Creditt of Philadelphia, reports that the “fifty thousand dollars offered by the Southern Baptist Convention for the establishment of a Theological Seminary was now assured” (with the site being either Memphis or Nashville), speaks for 37 minutes in favor of the motion to take up the Commission Concerning the Home Mission and Publishing Board’s report recommending that the NBC take control of the NBPB (while R. H. Boyd, head of both the NBC's Home Mission Board and the NBPB, speaks for 41 minutes against it), allegedly saying to Boyd, "Old man, you are a liar," and claiming that Boyd's entire family is on the NBPB payroll (according to Bobby L. Lovett's biography of Boyd, A Black Man's Dream p. 96); the motion passes 360 to 209 (Journal 86, 87, 95, 96)
--September 1914 Is arrested in Philadelphia at the time of the NBC meeting in connection with Orion stock he sold in that city in 1907, according to 9/14/14, 9/19/14, and 10/3/14 Philadelphia Tribune articles, and a 2/6/15 National Baptist Union-Review article claims that in Philadelphia Griggs was “indicted, arrested, apprehended and placed under bond, and forced to a compromise settlement whereby he is to pay $75 per month to the people whose money it is said he obtained under false premises”; during the 1914 NBC meeting, there were reports in Philadelphia Tribune of drunken and unruly behavior by attendees, which, in his annual address at the 1915 annual meeting in Chicago, President Morris attributes to "designing persons, who I am informed, were hired to come to that meeting for no other purpose than to prevent a peaceable consideration of reports to be brought before it. Can any man conceive any thing so vile among Christian men as the hiring of men to disturb a Christian assembly? Judas Iscariot received thirty pieces of silver to betray his Lord and Master, but it may be said to his credit that he had enough of the feeling of remorse left to cause him to hang himself" (Journal [1915] 30). These two events were almost certainly related attempts to prevent the Commission's motion concerning the NBPB from passing. There can be no question that R. H. Boyd is the traitor to whom Morris refers, and it is very likely that he had a hand in Griggs's arrest
--10/10/14 The NBUR claims that the Commission Concerning the Home Mission and Publishing Board report at the previous month's NBC meeting was entirely the work of Griggs
--10/17/14 The NBUR alleges that Griggs owes the NBPB $1500 and Boyd $300 in connection with his Orion publications
--10/18/14 Delivers the culminating talk, on “The Hope of the Negro,” at a Negro Baptist Convention meeting in Fort Worth, according to a 10/18/14 Fort Worth Star-Telegram article http://iw.newsbank.com/iw-search/we/HistArchive?p_theme=ahnpdoc&p_action=doc&p_product=EANX&p_nbid=E5AF47TDMTQyNzA0OTk5NC41MjM0MjA6MTo0Om55cGw&f_docref=image/v2:10EEA3CFD727D370@EANX-117BDC7C07C420F0@2420424-117BDC7C87B98A00@14-117BDC7F56545EA0@Negro+Baptists+Will+Hear+Noted+Lecturer&p_docref=image/v2:10EEA3CFD727D370@EANX-117BDC7C07C420F0@2420424-117BDC7C87B98A00@14-117BDC7F56545EA0@Negro+Baptists+Will+Hear+Noted+Lecturer&p_docnum=-1
--10/24/14 The NBUR reports Griggs's arrest in Philadelphia
--12/12/14 In an AA column, J. O. Midnight states that Griggs has started a paper affiliated with the NBC (most likely the National Beacon Light), a copy of which bears the headline "The Fight is On" (presumably a reference to the ongoing struggle to wrest the NBPB from R. H. Boyd), and wonders whether Griggs has taken too much on by attempting to be a writer, the Corresponding Secretary of the NBC Education Board, and a the editor of a newspaper
--Jan. 1915 John Brown, deacon of East Nashville First Baptist Church, levels eleven counts against Griggs in the Chancery Court of Davidson County (Nashville) totaling $1800, according to the NG and the NBUR (both controlled by Boyd) of Feb. 6, which print all of Brown’s counts in full
--Feb. 1915 NG and the Feb. 13 issue of NBUR state that Griggs’s Orion books “were printed by three large printing establishments in Nashville, one white printing establishment and two colored printing establishments,” suggest that Griggs may be guilty of mail fraud, speculate that his mismanagement of Orion may prevent Nashville from becoming the home of a national black Baptist seminary, and report “the rumor now taking the rounds in the city that Mr. Griggs did not leave the city because of his poverty, but that he had accumulated large sums of money for rainy days, and had sought home in a different city [Memphis] where he could use this money to better personal advantage”; see also the 2/13/15 Philadelphia Tribune article "Rev. Sutton E. Griggs in the Toils of the Law on a Serious Charge"
--May 1915 Attends the SBC annual meeting in Houston, discussing the report of the Committee on [the] Negro Theological Seminary in his capacity as Corresponding Secretary of the NBC's Educational Board, according the the Journal of the annual meeting of the SBC, p. 34.
--5/17/15 Along with six other men, files articles of incorporation for the NBC in the District of Columbia, in connection with the on-going effort on the part of President Morris and others to wrest the NBPB from R. H. Boyd, according to a 3/9/17 piece in the NG by J. P. Robinson
--July 1915 Delivers, in Raleigh, NC, “An address which, if heard by both races throughout the South, will do untold good in cementing the pleasant relationship between the” races, according to the Raleigh Times, as quoted in a 7/25/15 Wilmington Morning Star article
--7/25/15 Speaks at Shiloh Baptist Church in Wilmington, NC
--9/8-9/13/15 Attends the 35th Annual Session of the NBC at Chicago’s Baptist churches (at which the NBC splits into two factions), serves as the Corresponding Secretary of the NBC’s Education Board, pays “a glowing tribute to the eminent character and fitness of Dr. Morris,” moving Morris’s re-election as NBC President (which passes unanimously), speaks of "the bona fide guarantee of a site for the Theological Seminary by the citizens of Memphis," and expresses “his regret that the Convention had not given him more substantial support in his [Educational Board] work” (Journal 32, 35); echoing Morris, E. W. D. Isaac declares, "The great issue before the Convention is, shall these Boards that are creatures of this Convention control the Convention, or shall the Convention control the Boards" (Journal 32); a committee on which A. R. Griggs and S. N. Vass serve is appointed to prepare a Statement of the Cause of Confusion at the 1915 meeting that reads in part as follows: "the R. H. Boyd following at once began to make trouble and made an effort to elect officers before enrolling the delegates, allowing any one in the hall to vote, and it was even impossible to count the vote. By sheer brute force and worldly methods they made it impossible for the meeting to proceed in order and it was adjourned. . . . The next day the officers of the Convention desiring to make it possible to know the real persons entitled to vote, ordered that no one be admitted except by badge, which could be secured at the entrance. The second day of the Convention thus started off in peace and the President read his annual address, but was interrupted by an officer of the law who served an injunction secured by R. H. Boyd and his son, and he [Morris] at once left the Convention, and the Boyd faction tried to get control through E. P. Jones, but failed. This began to be the turning point and many delegates deserted the Boyd side when they saw that he was really after destroying the Convention" (Journal 33-34).
--September 1915 The Morris-Griggs-Isaac faction forms the National Baptist Convention of the United States of America, Inc. (NBCI) while those loyal to Boyd form the National Baptist Convention of America, unincorporated (NBCA)
--10/28/15 Speaks on “The Right of Search” at the First Baptist Church in Tulsa, OK, according to a 10/29/15 article in the Tulsa Daily World, which identifies Griggs as the “editor of the ‘Beacon Light,’ one of the most influential negro publications of the country”
--1916 Publishes Life’s Demand’s; or, According to Law (National Public Welfare League) https://archive.org/details/lifesdemandsorac00grigiala
--Late Feb 1916 Speaks to “a large audience at the First Baptist Church, Chelsea, TN, on ‘The Power of a Woman,’” according to a 3/4/16 article in the CD
--1916 Eunice Griggs attends Bishop College, according to a 7/1/16 piece by Fred H. Lester in the CD
--July 1916 speaks at the contentious Mississippi General Missionary Convention meeting in Jackson, according to a 7/29/16 AA article
--Summer 1916 Griggs’s wife attends “Chicago University,” according to a 9/2/16 article in the CD
--9/1/16 Delivers “the graduating address” for the Henderson Business College at the A.M.E. Avery Chapel in Memphis, according to a 9/9/16 piece by Fred H. Lester in the CD
--Sept 1916 Attends the NBC (Incorporated) meeting in Savannah, GA
--Early Nov. 1916 loses his cool and a debate with Henry Allen Boyd over the NBC split (and the NBPB) at the East Mississippi State Baptist Convention held in Lumberton, according to an 11/17/16 article in the (Kansas City) Advocate and an 11/25/16 PT article http://docs.newsbank.com/s/HistArchive/ahnpdoc/EANX/12C59C0A943DC340/0D0CB5FCC016CE55
--Nov. 1916 Griggs's Life's Demands is adopted for use in the "colored public schools" in Memphis, according to a 11/4/16 AA item
--11/6/17 At the invitation of the Memphis Chamber of Commerce, delivers an address entitled "A Platform of Endeavor Upon Which the Two Races of the South May Stand" to a large white audience at Central High School, according to an 11/7/17 Memphis Commercial Appeal article, which explains, "The general purpose of the lecture, as outlined by the committee [on negro industrial and living relations] of the Chamber of Commerce was to secure an exposition of the reasons for the negro exodus to the north and the methods by which it could be combatted, from the point of view of the negro." In it, Griggs said each race must recognize and appreciate the value of the other, urged that the laws be protected, and called for adequate school facilities and a living wage for blacks. According to the article, "The meeting last night is particularly worthy of note, in that it is the first effort made in the United States for a clear exposition of the race question, without bias, and from all angles."
--6/28/17 Graduates “of the school of Practical Arts met at the beautiful home of Dr. S. E. Griggs and organized an Alumni association,” according to a 7/7/17 item in the CD
--July 1917 Organizes a non-denominational advancement club for young people in Memphis, according to a 7/7/17 article in the CD
--8/29/17 Speaks at the First Baptist Church in Brownsville, TN, according to the NG
--12/8/17 Is attacked in “W. Allison Sweeney Breaks a ‘White Folks’ Nigger’ on the Wheel” in the CD over the 11/6/17 speech he gave at (white) Central High School in Memphis. In the wake of the controversy, the NBC passes a resolution supporting Griggs authored by Isaac. Griggs would respond to this hatchet job in the Appendix to Paths of Progress (1925)
--Feb 1918 Allegedly, the name of Col. Simmons is falsely used to advertise a talk by “‘Rev.’ S. E. Griggs,” but “Griggs fell down. The meeting fell through and Memphis is mad as a wet hen,” according to a 2/16/18 CD article entitled “Boy, Page Allison Sweeney; Griggs ‘In Wrong’ Again”
--4/10/18 Lectures in support of the purchase of Liberty bonds in Jonesboro, AK http://iw.newsbank.com/iw-search/we/HistArchive?p_theme=ahnpdoc&p_action=doc&p_product=EANX&p_nbid=S6FJ5CCYMTQyNzA1MDE4MS41MzUxMzk6MTo0Om55cGw&f_docref=image/v2:1205798C15C65A53@EANX-12067AF354143E58@2421693-120625B9E83C5AA0@5-123867BFDB8D7DB0@Coming+Wednesday+Night&p_docref=image/v2:1205798C15C65A53@EANX-12067AF354143E58@2421693-120625B9E83C5AA0@5-123867BFDB8D7DB0@Coming+Wednesday+Night&p_docnum=-1; http://iw.newsbank.com/iw-search/we/HistArchive?p_theme=ahnpdoc&p_action=doc&p_product=EANX&p_nbid=V58D45JBMTQyNzA1MDQ1My45NzM5NTg6MTo0Om55cGw&f_docref=image/v2:12F37217372468C8@EANX-12067ABAE6E16A38@2421695-1206323FD1223330@0-123853D19DD064DC@Show+Your+Patriotism&p_docref=image/v2:12F37217372468C8@EANX-12067ABAE6E16A38@2421695-1206323FD1223330@0-123853D19DD064DC@Show+Your+Patriotism&p_docnum=-1
--Late April 1918 Lectures at the Collins Chapel C. M. E. church in Covington, TN, according to a 5/4/18 article in CD
--5/9/18 Sweeney uses his attack on Griggs six months earlier to bolster his CD audience by means of the notice “W. Allison Sweeney Is on the War Path. He Will Scalp Another White Folks Nigger in Next Week’s Issue”
--Mid-May 1918 Is attacked by young people who “believe [him] to be the greatest turncoat in history,” at a gathering at Church’s park in Memphis. In response, Griggs declares, “I am a martyr,” according to a 5/18/18 article, “Griggs Throws a Fit,” in the CD
--May 1918 Is named among the Special Committee of Speakers to mobilize public opinion in favor of the US government’s war effort, according to a 5/24/18 article in the NG
--6/1/18 In a Letter to the Editor of the CD, Ettinger F. Smith attacks Principal G. P. Hamilton of the Kortrecht High school in Memphis in part because he requires his students “to purchase a copy of Rev. Sutton E. Griggs’ book”
--7/10/18 Addresses a crowd estimated at between four and five thousand in Henning, TN, according to a 7/26/18 piece in the NG
--Jan 1919 Raised $1,000,000 in support of the war effort without receiving compensation, according to a 1/8/19 (Memphis) News Scimitar item soliciting funds for Griggs's church
--3/12-3/15/19 Attends a meeting of the NBC (Incorporated)'s Educational Board in Atlanta; by this time, he has become the Board's Chairman, his father replacing him as Corresponding Secretary, according to a 3/1/19 Dallas Express item
--5/23/19 Delivers the graduating address at Tupelo High School in Mississippi, according to a 6/7/19 CD item
--June 1919 Speaks at a gathering celebrating “Colored soldiers of Obion county” in Union City, TN, according to a 6/7/19 article in the CD
--Aug 1919 Attends the Baptist state convention in Greensville, MS, according to a 8/2/19 CD item
--9/10-9/15/19 Attends and is the spotlighted Friday night speaker (the slot previously reserved for Booker T. Washington) at the NBC annual meeting in Newark, NJ
--9/27/19 Is announced as one of the speakers to address The Race Conference to be held at the Metropolitan Baptist Church in Washington, D.C., 10/7-10/11/19, according to the Broad Ax
--October 1919 Speaks twice at the Olivet Baptist Church in Chicago, according to a 11/1/19 CD article
--Dec. 1919 Publishes a newspaper called The Neighbor, designed to improve race relations, 25,000 copies of which are distributed free in Memphis, according to a 12/27/19 NS article
--1920 US Census places Sutton E. Griggs, age 47, in Shelby Co., TN (Memphis City)
--May 1920 A letter from Griggs (identified as being from Arkansas[?]) is read at the SBC's annual meeting, which met in Washington, D.C. that year, and printed the Journal of the SBC (pp. 122-23)
--9/8-9/13/20 Attends and is the spotlighted Friday night speaker at the NBC annual meeting in Indianapolis
--1921 An ad for Allen R. Griggs, Jr.'s poems "The Negro's Tribute to Roosevelt" and "Our Prayer" and another for his play The Soul of the Soldier appear in issues of the National Baptist Voice; moreover, his poem "Around the Throne" is published in the 10/1/21 issue of the NBV, which identifies him as "Superintendent Allen R. Griggs, Jr.," and the "author of that now famous song, 'Are They Equal in the Eyes of the Law'"
--Early April 1921 Preaches at Chicago's Olivet Baptist Church 4/3/21 and on 4/8/21 speaks on the Race problem at the same venue, according to a 4/9/21 CD item
--S. N. Vass takes over as Corresponding Secretary of the NBC's Educational Board from Allen R. Griggs, Sr., who becomes Secretary Emeritus, and Sutton Griggs remains Chairman of the Educational Board, according to a notice in the 10/1/21 issue of the NBV
--Publishes the article "World's Greatest Plantation" in the 12/31/21 issue of the NBV
--Spring 1922 Delivers the first commencement address to nine graduating students at North Texas Baptist College (1921-1926), founded in Denison the previous October by his father, according to the Handbook of Texas http://heralddemocrat.com/sections/opinion/local-commentary/north-texas-baptist-college-recalled.html; https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/ibnla
--1922-1923 Spends eighteen months as pastor of Hopewell Baptist Church in Denison, TX, following the 5/7/22 death of his father, according to a "The History of Hopewell Baptist Church" and a Feb. 1933 obituary of (Sutton) Griggs in the Mission Herald; "; see also Donna Hunt's 17 Feb. 2016 article "Hopewell Pastor Was Top Texas Novelist" in the Denison Herald Democrat http://heralddemocrat.com/blog/donna-hunt/hopewell-pastor-was-top-texas-novelist.html
--May 1923 Attends the annual SBC meeting in Kansas City, representing the NBC (along with Isaac and Vass) on the Joint Commission for the Negro Theological Seminary, and participating in a discussion of the Commission's report (Journal p. 79)
--Sept 1923 Gives the address, “The New England Conscience at Work on President Coolidge,” at the annual NBC meeting in Los Angeles
--March 1924 “Dr. S. E. Griggs is bringing his great institutional church [Tabernacle] to completion,” says a 3/8/24 CD article
--Sept 1924 American Baptist Theological Seminary opens in Nashville, the culmination of more than a decade and a half of work on Griggs's part to establish such an institution
--5/8/25 Is named the first President of the American Baptist Theological Seminary in Nashville, a position he holds until 1926 https://www.flickr.com/photos/chucksutherland/5994438423/
--May 1925 Attends the SBC annual meeting in Memphis, making remarks as the President of the American Baptist Theological Seminary (Journal p. 50)
--9/12/25 Is attacked by the CD over white Southern praise for Paths of Progress in an article entitled “Griggs at It Again”
--5/14/27 In his Day by Day column in the AA, William Jones notes the shift in Griggs's racial politics over the course of his career, from "one of the most outspoken antagonists of Booker T. Washington's idea of complacency with the South" to someone who, at the recent dedication of a high school in Memphis, "advised the race group that their only hope lies in currying favor with the southern white people and to accept the southern white man's view on the race question"; in a 5/28/27 letter to the editor of the AA, Griggs denies having given such advice
--May 1927 It is reported at the SBC annual meeting in Louisville that Griggs has resigned as ABTS President (Journal p. 27)
--May 1928 Speaks at the Okolona Industrial School in Okolona, MS, according to a 5/26/28 AA item
--Sept 1928 Participates in the NBC (Incorporated) annual meeting in Louisville, according to a 9/15/28 CD item
--1930 US Census places Sutton E. Griggs, age 56, in Shelby Co., TN (Memphis)
--1/12/30 A highly critical 1/18/30 AA item claims that Griggs, whom it identifies as the pastor of "a Baptist church in Tunica, Mississippi," preaches on "A New Day for the Delta"
--5/13-5/16/30 Attends the Western Baptist Missionary and Educational Convention at the Tabernacle Baptist Church in St. Louis, according to a 5/23/30 (Wichita) Negro Star article
--6/29/30 Speaks at Coppin Chapel church in Chicago, according to a 6/28/30 CD item, which identifies him as "executive secretary of the collective efficiency committee" of the NBC
--July 1930 Opens a “clinic for personal guidance in problems of collective efficiency” in Chicago, according to a 7/12/30 CD item that describes him as “formerly of Memphis”
--10/30/30 Tabernacle Baptist church "sold at public auction to satisfy the delinquent debt held by Universal Life Insurance Company," according to Miriam DeCosta-Willis's Notable Black Memphians (Amherst: Cambria, 2008), p. 146
--1931 Bishop Charles H. Mason purchases "Tabernacle Baptist Church at 672 South Lauderdale Street from Dr. Sutton Griggs" and converts it into the Temple Church of God in Christ, according to Calvin McBride's Walking into a New Spirituality, New York: iUniverse, 2007, p. 78 (In 1958 the building burns down under mysterious circumstances)
--2/6/31 Addresses the in-coming students of Booker T. Washington High School in Memphis, stating that they must be "taught the lesson of co-operation," according to a 2/14/31 AA item
--Feb 1931 Presides at Memphis’s Tabernacle Baptist church on Lauderdale Street, according to a 2/28/31 article by Bessie Thornton in the CD; shortly thereafter, apparently, Tabernacle declares bankruptcy
--May 1931 Speaks on the high black murder rate at the Antioch Baptist Church in Shreveport, LA, according to a 5/22/31 article in the (Kansas City, KS) Wyandotte Echo, which identifies him as "Dr. Sutton E. Griggs, author and social worker of Memphis" http://docs.newsbank.com/s/HistArchive/ahnpdoc/EANX/12C8BAB49CA7D0C0/0D0CB5FCC016CE55