Prior to the war the Madison Baptist Church in Georgia, like many other congregations in the Deep South, had almost as many black members as white members. Most, if not all, black members were slaves, their presence forced by their masters and policed by white church members. In 1859 a new church sanctuary was constructed.…
Baptists of Kansas City were involved in the abolition movement before and during the Civil War. In the first two years of the war, runaway slaves (or contraband) found refuge in Union Army camps and towns and cities of the North. Of the latter, Leavenworth, Kansas served as a refuge for runaway slaves in the…
Edmond Kelley is Tennessee’s first ordained African American Baptist minister. Born a slave in Tennessee in 1817, he escaped to Massachusetts, where in 1851 he published his life’s story to date. Having secretly taught himself to read during his youth, in 1843 Kelley was ordained by the white First Baptist Church of Nashville. Three years…