Today the Mount Pleasant Baptist Church of Norfolk, Virginia, an African American congregation, is officially founded, one of many black Baptist churches established this month. The church traces its origins to the antebellum period, during which time two slaves — Jacob Cargo and Elijah Lively — held prayers meetings in the Norfolk area. The Emancipation…
In Raleigh this day the first Convention of the Colored People of North Carolina convenes, a gathering “novel to the white people.” Prior to the end of the war and the defeat of the Confederacy, such an assembly was not merely unlawful, but inconceivable. Even now, many delegates from distant towns and cities traveled to…
Treated as non-humans by Southern state laws in the decades prior to and during the war, slaves were not allowed to marry. Many slave couples compensated by engaging in simple rituals signifying informal marriages. White Baptist leaders of the South remained defiantly supportive of black slavery throughout the war, although some voiced support of laws…