Silas Xavier Floyd (1869 – September 19, 1923) was an African-American educator, preacher, and journalist. Active in Augusta, Georgia, he was a writer and editor at the Augusta Sentinel and later wrote for the Augusta Chronicle. In 1892 he co-founded the Negro Press Association of Georgia. He was pastor at Augusta's Tabernacle Baptist Church and was a prominent agent of the International Sunday School Convention. He was also a public school principal and an officer of the National Association of Teachers in Colored Schools. Personal life Floyd's father, David Floyd was born in 1829 in Sandersville, Georgia. He was likely born a slave and married a woman named Sarah Jane and had seven children. Silas was born in Augusta on October 2, 1869, four years after the end of the American Civil War and six years after the Emancipation Proclamation. David Floyd was a preacher and a model for his son. Silas worked as a boy, delivering papers and shining shoes. One noted customer of Floyd's was merchant J. B. White, with whom Floyd would have a lifelong relationship. Floyd also began following a religious path early in his life, aiding in holding religious services at a jail with the YMCA in 1883. Floyd attended Ware High School where he was valedictorian and was an outstanding and honored student. He graduated from Atlanta University in May 1891. Floyd gave an oration at the graduation and his class numbered five graduates of the college course including educator Julius Clifton Styles and physician Loring Brainard Palmer and nine graduates of the normal (teaching) course, including Helena Brown Cobb and Adrienne McNeil Herndon. In 1894 he received an A.M. from the school. On May 6, 1900, Silas married Ella Drayton James, who had one child, Marietta, with her former husband barber Owen C. James. Ella had three sisters, Katie, Henrietta and Mary. Mary married a sea captain and moved to Jacksonville, Florida. Their daughter, Ella's niece, Nora, married composer J. Rosamond Johnson. Ella was the daughter of Samuel and Nora Drayton. Silas X. Floyd died in Augusta on September 19, 1923. Career After graduation, Floyd continued to be associated with the Augusta Sentinel, for which he was an editor by 1891. In 1892 he was cofounder of the Negro Press Association of Georgia and later served as the body's president. Floyd was active in religious life, joining a Baptist church at the age