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Section 2: Building the Black Community: The Family Section 2: Building the Black Community: The Church Section 2: Building the Black Community: The School Section 2: Quest for Economic Autonomy and Equal Rights Section 2: Memory and Mourning Section 2: Violence

Building the Black Community:
The Church

The creation of autonomous black churches was a major achievement of the Reconstruction era, and a central component of blacks' conception of freedom.

The first institution fully controlled by African-Americans, the church played a central role in the black community.

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Baptismal ceremony at the First African Baptist Church in Richmond. (Harper's Weekly, June 27, 1874)
Copyright 2003
A New Birth of Freedom: Reconstruction During the Civil War The Meaning of Freedom: Black and White Responses to Slavery