Royalty Unveiled: Women Trailblazers in Church of God in Christ International Missions 1920 -1970 is the first book of its kind to explore the work of international missionaries in the Church of God in Christ, the largest Pentecostal organization in America with churches in more than sixty countries. Its exponential growth in emerging countries can be traced to the work of brave women who left the United States beginning in the 1920s to board ships to Africa, Haiti, the Phillipines and around the world taking the message of Pentecost. Royalty Unveiled begins with an overview of American missions in the western United States and moves into Black participation in foreign missions and subsequently Pentecostal missions. Using personal interviews with women and men now in their 80s and 90s who recall their service for Christ provide details about their work in raw fields. The children, grandchildren, and caretakers weigh in along with former students, some who recall entering kindergarten at the age of 15. Mattie McCaulley journeyed to Trinidad and was the COGICs first international missionary. Elizabeth White arrived in Africa in the 1920s and initially affiliated with the Assembly of God before returning to Liberia in 1929-30 under the COGIC banner. Later Willie Curtis Ragland, Martha Barber, Beatrice Lott, Dorothy Exume, husband and wife team Charles and Betty Kennedy, Pearl Page Brown and others braved dangerous elements as they built schools, medical stations, rescued abandoned babies from the streets placing them in orphanages they constructed with the help of native Haitians or Africans. Photos of international missionaries, Mission Towns created around the compounds, documents and much more is included.
About the Author: Glenda Williams Goodson is Executive Director/Founder of The Center for African American Church History and Research, Inc., a nonprofit organization. She is a Licensed Evangelist Missionary of the Church of God in Christ and a member of the History Commitment of the denomination's Department of Women. She writes extensively on the history of the church and her works include Bishop Mason and Those Sanctified Women!, Wisdom Quotes and Treasures from Pioneer COGIC Women and her company produced an 80 documentary, Our Mothers' Stories, featuring interviews with pioneering church women. She holds an undergraduate degree in English from Southern Methodist University and MBA in Strategic Leadership from Amberton University.