In the fall months of 1864 many newly-freed blacks from the Border State of Kentucky enrolled in the Union Army. Also in late 1864, more and more emancipated black Baptists, no longer forced by their masters to attend white churches, began meeting autonomously. The ensuing months have witnessed a continued exodus of black Baptists from…
Today the owner of Ford’s Theater, the former site of the First Baptist Church of Washington, D.C. and the place where former U.S. President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, agrees to lease the building to the War Department. In reality, the theater has been under the control of the U.S. government since the assassination. Military guards…
Following a number of letters written on his behalf to U.S. president Andrew Johnson, including one by Richard Fuller, Baltimore pastor and former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, Baptist minster and editor J. R. Graves is granted amnesty. The former resident of Nashville, Tennessee returns to the state and settles in Memphis, where for…