Today the Mount Pleasant Baptist Church of Norfolk, Virginia, an African American congregation, is officially founded, one of many black Baptist churches established this month. The church traces its origins to the antebellum period, during which time two slaves — Jacob Cargo and Elijah Lively — held prayers meetings in the Norfolk area. The Emancipation…
The formation of African American Baptist churches in the South continues unabated. Among the many congregations established this month is the Beards Chapel Baptist Church of Robertson County, Tennessee. Black churches, however, are often used for more than worship services. In Macon, Georgia, one of the South’s newest Freedmen schools operates out of an African…
It is two-and-one-half years after U.S. President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, and two months after the war came to an effective end. And on this day, in the far reaches of the old Confederacy, Union Major General Gordon Granger arrives in Galveston, Texas bearing startling news for black persons living in Texas: you…