Today the first Convention of Colored Citizens of the State of Arkansas is gathered in Little Rock. Many Baptists are among those present. The purpose of the convention is to exert the rights of freedmen and ensure that white Southerners respect their freedom. The road thus far has been brutal, and a future of true…
Three days after the assassination that stunned a war-torn nation, the body of Abraham Lincoln is placed on public display at the White House. Fittingly, the president who maintained an open door to American citizens is now lying in an open casket. Through Lincoln’s presidential door routinely walked poor and rich, whites and free blacks.…
With the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery having passed the United States Senate and awaiting approval of the House, the attention of the North is increasingly focused on bringing the war to a conclusion so that freedom might be extended to blacks yet enslaved. The state of Massachusetts, and Boston in particular, has for decades been…