My Ancestor: The Slave, The Reverend and Publishing House President..

You all might remember a post I wrote at the top of the year entitled: When Black People Stand in the Way of Black History - it was my very frustrated rant about a church in Macon, Georgia which I learned had been founded by my great-great grandfather. In any case, I had spent a year trying to get information from them. Simple details like: What was my gg-grandfather's full name, as I only had initials (Rev. T.M. Robinson) and did they know where he was buried and was there a bible around containing the names of his children...

Call after call and email after email went ignored and finally I contacted a journalist in the area (I was damn mad by then) who sent word to her pastor to reach out to the current pastor of the church.

FINALLY -- I received an email and then weeks later a package with some information -- not much - let's just say it was just enough info to shut me up for awhile.

In any case, just this moment I was lying on the couch watching the end of A-Team, when a little voice came to my spirit and said: Why don't you google your Tenant Robinson?

I had never thought of that...and so I did. And do you know what I found?

I found a bio and photograph of Tenant M. Robinson in this book: Our Baptist Ministers and Schools, written by A.W. Pegues, published by Wiley & Co in 1892.

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Rev. Tenant M. Robinson, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Macon, Georgia, was born on the Edisto river, near Charleston, South Carolina, in 1839. His mother was sold when he was five years old and carried to Aiken, South Carolina. She was again sold to a man by the name of Nat Black and carried to Graniteville, South Carolina. There' little Tenant lived with his mother a short time, when they again moved to Edgefield County. He was not here long before his mother ran away and left him alone in the world.

Tenant was now a good sized lad, and drifted back again to the neighborhood of Charleston, where he had several sisters. His mother had four children, two boys and two girls. He never saw his mother after she left him in Edgefield County until after the emancipation. Little Tenant was carried to Aiken, South Carolina, again. His master, who kept a sharp eye on his growing "nigger," now went to Louisiana and left the lad with his brother James, who hired Tenant to a man in a place then known as Kolan, South Carolina. But Tenant was not here long before he found himself in Augusta, Georgia, where he remained until the beginning of the war of the rebellion. He was then taken again to Kolan and remained there until he was set free.

He returned to Augusta, Georgia, embraced the religion of Christ, was baptized by Rev. Henry Johnson, and united with the Thankful Baptist Church. Soon after becoming a member he was united in marriage with Miss Louisa Jenkins of Hamburg, South Carolina, in 1866.

Mr. Robinson began his ministerial work the first year after becoming a member of the church. He attended the institution planted in Augusta, Georgia, by the American Baptist Home Mission Society, which was afterwards moved to Atlanta and known as the Atlanta Baptist Seminary. His advancement in knowledge and ministerial proficiency was rapid.

In 1870 he was called to a church in Columbia County, Georgia, which he served seventeen successive years. At the expiration of that time he was called to Antioch, Alabama; with that church he remained three years, at the end* of which time he accepted the call to his present field of labor.


As a preacher Rev. Robinson is full of force and eloquence. He is a fisher of men and many souls are brought to Christ through his efforts. As a rule he preaches to crowded houses. Out of the pulpit he spends most of his time in studying the Bible and visiting the sick. He is a member of the executive board of the Ebenezer Association, the Middle Georgia Association, and the State Baptist Convention, and is president of the Ministers' Union of Macon, Georgia. In June, 1890, he was elected president of the Central City Times Publishing Company.

Rev. Robinson has a good wife and three children, two boys and one girl. He is now erecting a fine brick church edifice at a cost of $30,000 in place of the old building now used by the First Baptist Church of Macon. He lives in his own comfortable home on Pleasant Hill, one of the popular suburbs of the city.










Bernice L. McFadden