NASHVILLE, TN (WSMV) -
A publishing company started by a former slave more than 100 years ago has grown into one of Nashville's most successful family businesses.
R.H. Boyd's legacy can now be found in thousands of churches and bookstores around the world.
If you look at any Sunday school booklet, brochure or hymnal, there is a good chance it was published and printed here.
Dr. T.B. Boyd III is continuing the family legacy started by his great-grandfather, who was born a slave.
In the early 1900s, R.H. Boyd, as a freed man, became a preacher. His goal was to establish Sunday school material for blacks in the South.
A few years later, in Nashville, Boyd founded the National Baptist Publishing Board. It was small, but quickly it took off as so many black people were hungry for knowledge.
"This material here was not only used as church literature, it was also used as regular school literature. They learned to read from this material," said Dr. T.B. Boyd III.
Fast-forward 100 years, and the Baptist Publishing Board is now R.H. Boyd Publishing Corp., which now prints more than 9 million booklets each year.
Its facility off Centennial Boulevard also ships to some 40,000 churches and bookstores around the world.
To keep up with a changing industry, months ago, the company expanded its resources to e-Reading online.
Dr. Boyd says the men before him would be proud to see this black-owned business still going strong a century later.
"There is no other company really like this, of this magnitude, in the world," he said.
In 2009, R.H. Boyd was posthumously inducted into the Music City Walk of Fame for his role in preserving the writings and music of former slaves and their descendants.
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