Today the post-war South Carolina constitutional state convention meets at the First Baptist Church of Columbia to form a post-war Provisional Government. The venue is the same as that of the earlier declaration of secession, December 20, 1860. And today’s delegates, all white elites, are just as defiant as were secession delegates in 1860 (many…
Meeting in Detroit’s Second Baptist Church, African American, the Colored Men’s Convention of the State of Michigan convenes this day. Delegates to the convention vote to establish the State Equal Rights League of Michigan, an organization to advance the “rights of the colored people” of Michigan. “Colored suffrage” is on the ballot for November 1866,…
This month Richmond’s First African Baptist Church debates pastoral leadership. White minister Robert Ryland, president of Richmond College, has long been their preacher, as antebellum and Civil War laws mandated that black congregations must be overseen by a white minister. Ryland, although a defender of black slavery, was somewhat controversial in that he advocated for…