Independence Day celebrations return to a nation undivided. For white Southerners, many impoverished in the wake of their Confederacy’s defeat, the day is the darkest July 4th ever as free blacks and U.S. soldiers parade through Southern cities and the Emancipation Proclamation is read alongside the Declaration of Independence. Evidencing little to no regard for…
Tensions between Southern white citizens and freedmen show no signs of abating. From Virginia to Texas, a tug of war is unfolding between Northern (American) Baptists who are aiding freedmen, and Southern Baptists who resent the meddling of Northerners. Today in Natchez, Mississippi, four black deacons of the Wall Street Baptist Church petition U.S. President…
When Northern missionaries, many Baptists, in 1863 onward arrived in the South to work among freedmen, they oftentimes found black congregations led by licensed, and in some cases ordained, preachers. This was especially true in Savannah, where the First African Baptist Church and Third African Baptist Church, both among the older black Baptist churches in…