This month the Ku Klux Klan begins taking shape in the Pulaski, Tennessee law office of Thomas M. Jones. The six men who establish the KKK maintain long-held beliefs, as do most white Southerners, in white supremacy and black servitude. Union efforts to bring equality to freedmen further fuel their anger. From this mix of…
In Selma, the county seat of Dallas County, Alabama, freedpersons feel anything but free. Major J. B. Houston is is the provost marshal for Selman’s Freedmen’s Burea. This month he files a report concerning a dozen cases of “white-on-black violence,” the incidents of which are “but a small part of those that have actually been”…
Founded on May 29, 1842, the First Baptist Church of Selma, Alabama is more fortunate than many Baptist congregations of the South. Having remained open during the war, the church now moves into the post-war era, one month following the Battle of Selma in which Union forces invaded and destroyed the town’s army arsenal and…