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,…
As Sherman overruns Georgia and Lee is pinned down in Virginia, the Confederacy has placed great military hopes in General John Bell Hood‘s invasion of Tennessee. Hope, however, far distant from reality in the rapidly-sinking Confederacy, is not to be found in Tennessee as the Federals defeat the Rebels yet again, this time in the…
As the year draws to to a close, many thousands of black soldiers have enlisted in the United States army, primarily during the second half of the year. As the march to freedom for enslaved blacks accelerates, the Northern city of Detroit plays a significant role. Foremost among black Baptist congregations of Detroit is the…