rican Baptist Home Mission Society and
the Home Mission Board of the Alabama Baptist State
Convention as lecturer for ministers. In this capacity he
accomplished a great work. Many ministers to-day look back
to those days when they sat in institutes conducted by him
as the times of their greatest inspiration for mental and
spiritual development.

As president of the Alabama Penny Savings Bank he has a
reputation as extensive as the country of which he is a
citizen. There is no city of importance where this bank has
not done business. It has gained the reputation of being a
safe business, having survived several panics to which many
other similar institutions have succumbed.

Dr. Pettiford has managed to find some time to write. He is
the author of the following treatises: "Divinity in
Wedlock," "God's Revenue System" and "The Centenary," all of
which do him honor and his fellow man service. But this
sketch would be incomplete if it were closed without stating
this truth: That much of the Doctor's success is rightly
attributed to the sympathy and help of his life companion,
formerly Miss Della Boyd, to whom he was joined in bonds of
wedlock November 22, 1880. Three children have graced their
home, being systematically trained for usefulness in life.

Since the emancipation of the Negro in this country philanthropists
have contributed largely to the establishment of schools and colleges
for his education. Some of these institutions have been the means of
affording the Negro literary instruction, and others have given him
more practical benefits in industrial training. These methods of
helping a race that was necessarily groping in the darkness of
illiteracy are not only commendable from the viewpoint of
humanitarianism and sound philanthropy, but it must be conceded that
some such help was indispensable to any real advancement of the Negro
in the matter of education. For all such assistance it can be said
that the Negro is truly appreciative and, for the most part, has
earnestly striven to demonstrate his profound gratitude by eagerly
taking hold of the opportunities thus afforded for his enlightenment.
The industrial schools, Hampton, Tuskegee, and others, have done much
in a practical way for the Negro in giving him a knowledge of
trades--a class of training that must prove of inestimable value to
him in hi