This month the Ku Klux Klan begins taking shape in the Pulaski, Tennessee law office of Thomas M. Jones. The six men who establish the KKK maintain long-held beliefs, as do most white Southerners, in white supremacy and black servitude. Union efforts to bring equality to freedmen further fuel their anger. From this mix of…
As in each month following the war thus far, this month many autonomous black Baptist congregations are founded. One is in Birmingham, Alabama. Most likely the white members of the white-led church that the freedmen had been forced to attend as slaves, are happy for their black members to depart. Their leaving ensures that they…
The Alabama Baptist State Convention, meeting today in Marion, issues a Report on the State of Religion. With the war over and Alabama occupied by Union troops, a sense of despondency hovers in the background. In the report delegates lament the frequent “absence of correspondence and statistical documents.” Some churches, however, have enjoyed “precious revival…