Edmond Kelley is Tennessee’s first ordained African American Baptist minister. Born a slave in Tennessee in 1817, he escaped to Massachusetts, where in 1851 he published his life’s story to date. Having secretly taught himself to read during his youth, in 1843 Kelley was ordained by the white First Baptist Church of Nashville. Three years…
With the war over and Reconstruction in the South underway, Baptist associations of the North emerge as the most “radical” Christians in terms of demanding racial justice. Throughout the Northern states, Baptists press the Johnson administration to make certain that racial equality is established in the states of the former Confederacy. Almost all Baptist associations…
Following a number of letters written on his behalf to U.S. president Andrew Johnson, including one by Richard Fuller, Baltimore pastor and former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, Baptist minster and editor J. R. Graves is granted amnesty. The former resident of Nashville, Tennessee returns to the state and settles in Memphis, where for…