Black Baptists, like other black Americans, adore Abraham Lincoln. In the years following the president’s Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863, Lincoln has repeatedly been heralded as the Moses of black Americans. By way of contrast, many white Baptists of the South, and other white Southerners, have long ridiculed Lincoln as the “black president” while…
Today the U.S. Congress passes the Freedmen’s Bureau Bill, an act creating the Freedmen’s Bureau. The bill is considered a major step in the early movement toward racial equality, providing assistance for former slaves in terms of food, housing, education and health care, in addition to oversight regarding employment contracts with private landowners. Black Baptists,…
While only minor skirmishes occur this day, in Virginia Union General Ulysses S. Grant orders Major General Phil Sheridan‘s force of some 10,000 cavalry to move south of Winchester on a mission to destroy the Virginia Central Railroad and James River Canal. In addition, Sheridan is tasked with capturing Lynchburg, if possible. Indeed, with Sherman…