When the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention opens, a little-noticed ritual usually occurs.
An SBC executive hands a gavel to the person elected president the previous June. That act officially opens the meeting.
It turns out that gavel, the so-called 1872 Broadus gavel, has a questionable history — especially in a church body that has sought racial reconciliation within its ranks. The gavel is named for John A. Broadus. He was a slaveholder, a believer in white superiority and a founding faculty member of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
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