This year, in the wake of the Emancipation Proclamation, the founding of African Baptist churches proliferates. Unfortunately, the details of the formation of many of these congregations are nebulous. According to one early source, the Fourth Baptist Church, African (later Metropolitan Baptist Church) is formed this month in the District of Columbia “by a few holding…
This month the First African Baptist Church of Savannah, Georgia licenses Deacon James M. Simms to preach. Born in Savannah, Georgia in 1823, Simms for much of his life was not involved in church. But in 1857 he had purchased his freedom, and in 1858 returned to the church and within a few months had…
With gathering momentum, African slavery is losing ground following the Emancipation Proclamation. Nowhere is this more evident than within Union-controlled areas along the South Carolina coast. In the state where the first shot of the war was fired, and where prior to the war some of the richest men in the nation lived–all large plantation…