This dissertation analyzes the missionary philosophy of leaders within the National Baptist Convention USA, Inc. from 1880-1930 encapsulating the first 50 years of its history. Special attention is focused upon African American and African missionaries in the South African field of operation of the Foreign Mission Board of the convention. This dissertation argues that African American Baptists envisioned its role in the redemption of South Africa in terms of an awareness of God's Providential Design that determined that Christian African Americans must be the ones to bring the gospel of Jesus Christ to Africans as well as American civilization. This work analyzes editorials, essays, and letters from the South African field that appear in the official newspaper of the Foreign Mission Board of the National Baptist Convention, the Mission Herald. Through this analysis it is found that both African American Baptists and African Baptists in the mission field believed that God's Providence dictated that African Americans must go to Africa to redeem Africans spiritually and materially.