The Reverend Charles Henry CLARK, whose church in Nashville, Tennessee is the hostess of the National Baptist Convention for 1913, is one of the really great and interesting characters of the National Baptist Convention. He was born October 15, 1855, in Christian County, Kentucky. His father was unknown to him, having escaped across Mason and Dixon’s line while Charles was a mere babe. Later his mother married Mr. Jerry CLARK, who joined the Union Army in 1860 and remained until 1864, when he rejoined her in Trigg County, Kentucky. For some time they farmed at this point; but feeling the need of better educational facilities for Charles and an elder son, George, Mr. CLARK moved to Hopkinsville, where he placed the children in school. But poverty soon forced him to leave the city and re-enter farm life five miles away. At this time George, and enterprising boy, who was nearing his twenty-first birthday, determined that distance should prove no hindrance and poverty no barrier to his education, resolved to walk to town daily to school and pay both his tuition and that of his younger brother Charles. For three years they remained in school, winning prizes and exhibiting rare attainments. So rapid was Charles’ progress in school that he soon made good in the county examination, was awarded a teacher’s certificate, and engaged in successful teaching for some time at the Mount Zion Baptist Church, near Hopkinsville.
But God had another mission for him; and this new calling began in 1876, when he felt the forgiveness of his sins and joined the Green Hill Baptist Church, of which the Rev. G.G. GARRETT was then pastor. He was at once made church clerk and a deacon. As an officer he was active and tireless in the prosecution of his duties. Soon he was licensed to preach and went from plantation to plantation, exercising his gifts and swaying men by the charm of his voice and his searching presentation of the Scriptures.
It was not until 1880 that Mr. CLARK relinquished teaching and devoted his efforts to the ministry. During that year he married Miss Maria BRIDGES, of Canton, Trigg County, Kentucky. Five children have blessed the happy union – Grant, Mattie, Mary, George, and Willie.
The Canton Baptist Church called him to ordination in September, 1880. He served at the same time the Rolling Mill and Center Furnace Baptist Churches until 1884, when the Shepherd Street Baptist Church; Princeton, Kentucky, offered him her pulpit. May 1, 1886, he accepted the pastorate of the Fourth Street Baptist Church, Owensboro; and for seven years and nine months he led that great church forward as it had not been for years. He was called from Kentucky to his present pastorate in Nashville, one of the most flourishing and progressive in the entire connection and one that gave the National Baptist Convention a most magnificent entertainment in September, 1899.
Mr. CLARK is an organizer of men. He is one of the founders of the National Baptist Publishing House; for it was in his parlor that the plans were drawn and from his bank account a contribution was given to start a concern that has become the wonder of the age. And Dr. CLARK has been continuously elected chairman of the board of managers of that corporation since its organization; and much of the success that has followed the operations of that enterprise has been due to his judicious advice and personal efforts. As chairman of the Publishing House Board, it devolved upon him, as the right-hand man of Dr. BOYD, to advise ways and means of co-operation with the Southern Baptist Convention in mission work among the Southern colored Baptists.
Dr. CLARK has served as president of the Tennessee Baptist Convention and as commissioner appointed by the Governor of Tennessee to the Educational Convention of Negro Leaders, and is at present president of the National Baptist Sunday school Congress, an active member of the Board of Trustees of Roger Williams University and of Howe Institute, a director of the Penny Savings Bank of Nashville, and treasurer of the Stone River Association. He has shown great executive ability throughout his career of thirty-six years, and the confidence and esteem in which he is held by his co-laborers in all the responsible positions to which he has been called are well-nigh idolatrous.
The degree of Doctor of Divinity was conferred upon him by the Cadiz (Kentucky) Normal and Theological College, of which the Rev. W.H. McRIDLEY, LL.D. is president; and that of LL.D. by Roswell College, New Mexico, Dr. J.H.MAY president.
In whatever capacity Dr. CLARK has served, success has followed him. As a public school-teacher, he was loved and respected; as pastor, he has proved a signal success, having raised the financial, moral, intellectual, and spiritual standing of the people to a high degree of efficiency; as a disciplinarian, he is the equal of any man of the denomination; as an evangelist, thousands have been coverted under his preaching. Eminent as a Bible student, great as a public speaker, thorough as a leader of men, and the idol of the eighteen hundred members of the Mount Olive Baptist Church, Nashville, Dr. CLARK, with his devoted wife, will live in the memory of friends long after he is no more.
Source: Bacote, Samuel W. Who’s Who Among the Colored Baptists of the United States. New York: Arno Press, 1913.
