For white citizens, New Year’s Day in Augusta, Georgia is filled with hope for the coming months. Augusta, a large and important city in the state, is also the birthplace of the  Southern Baptist Convention. The SBC had been founded in 1845 in the city’s First Baptist Church, at a south-wide convention called by leading Southern Baptists of the day. The delegates of that convention, comprised mostly of well-to-do slaveowners and thus representing only a small … Read entire article »