INTRODUCTION Baptists and other white Americans North and South during the Civil War-era were unequivocal: secession, the existence of the Confederate States of America, and the Civil War were all the result of slavery, the immoral (or moral, depending on one’s race, political persuasion and/or geographic location) institution that served as the economic engine of…
Many Baptist churches of the South yet lie in ruins or at least disrepair, a byproduct of the recent war, perhaps none more so than in the state of Virginia. Today’s Richmond Daily Dispatch carries an article about one such church. “The Rev. Mr. Taylor, a native of Richmond, and pastor of the Baptist Church…
Mary Richards Bowser (c. 1841 – ?), born into slavery and raised in Richmond, Virginia, has lived an amazing life. Elizabeth Van Lew, of the Van Lew family that owned Bowser, arranged for her education in the North and granted her much freedom prior to the war. From 1855 the young woman served as a…