Delegates to the Hiwassee United Baptist Association of Tennessee, in annual meeting in Roane County, discuss and debate the recent Civil War. The South’s role in the war is considered as that of the aggressor, but the association seeks distance from political conflict and “unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.” The question…
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…
In the midst of secession fever in January 1861, the (white) First Baptist Church of Nashville, Tennessee established a “Second Colored Baptist Mission” in Edgefield, east of Nashville’s downtown, on Fatherland Street. The mission church was supervised by a white committee and pastored by George Dardis, a free black preacher. Nelson G. Merry, free black…