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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

Before the Civil War, many rural slaves had held secret religious meetings outside the supervision of their owners.

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Other slaves, along with free blacks, had belonged to biracial congregations controlled by whites, many of which required black members to sit in the back of the church or the galleries during services.

With emancipation, blacks withdrew from these institutions to create their own churches. They pooled their resources to purchase land and erect church buildings.

A place of worship, the church also housed schools, social events, and political gatherings, and sponsored benevolent and fraternal societies. Black ministers also came to play a major role in Reconstruction politics.
Copyright 2003
A New Birth of Freedom: Reconstruction During the Civil War The Meaning of Freedom: Black and White Responses to Slavery