“Schism Was in the Air”

Abstract

Abstract This chapter offers an in-depth account of the annual meeting of the National Baptist Convention in 1960, a meeting that was plagued by controversy over the presidential election between Joseph H. Jackson and Gardner C. Taylor, that concluded several days earlier than planned, that produced a lawsuit against Jackson, and that resulted in two leaders claiming to be the duly elected president of the NBC. This chapter also charts the rise and fall of the alliance between the Jackson family and the family of Martin Luther King Jr. as well as the early discussions surrounding the launching of a new denomination: the Progressive National Baptist Convention.