The African American Second Baptist Church of Hampton, Virginia was established in the months following the end of the Civil War. This week the congregation makes preparations for a celebration of January 1, 1866, the third anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, and the first since the effecting of freedom for all blacks with the Union…
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,…
The Union and Confederate armies are by now in full preparation for the looming spring campaigns. While the federal Red River Campaign in Louisiana has become bogged down and Confederates have manged to regain control of Plymouth, North Carolina, Union forces, largely victorious on the battlefield since July of the year prior, clearly remain on…