Browse Items (97 total)

Before the Civil War, churches often had black and white members, although they were segregated within the congregation. African American churches were required by Virginia law to have white ministers, and after the Civil War, many African Americans…

First African Baptist Church was founded in Richmond in 1841 when the white and black members of the city's First Baptist Church separated into two congregations. First African Baptist Church may have been one of the largest church buildings in…

African American Methodists in Portsmouth constructed their own church in 1857. The building was used by escaping slaves as part of the Underground Railroad. Required by Virginia law to have a white minister, the congregation called its first African…

In this detail of his lithograph celebrating the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment, James Carter Beard illustrated the ability of African Americans to take the pulpit and pastor churches in the South, where they had long been denied that right…

In April 1868, James B. Carter, an African American member of the constitutional convention, purchased a lot at the corner of Thirteenth and Hull Streets in the town of Manchester and opened a grocery store in partnership with Richard Smith. It's…

In December 1865 Pollard Gaines, an African American, contracted with Royall H. Eubank to work his Nelson County farm, tend to all the livestock, repair buildings and fences, cut and haul firewood, fill the ice house, and cultivate the garden "for…

In December 1865 Nancy Arvin contracted with William Arvin Jr., possibly her former owner, to care for his farm for a suit of summer and winter clothing for her and three of her children and for wages for two of her other children. In the aftermath…

This November 1865 contract between William D. Floyd, of Lunenburg County, and six members of the Burnett family is a fairly typical agreement by which a landowner allowed workers to farm his land in exchange of a share of the crop that the workers…

On January 1, 1866, William H. Eubank hired African Americans Bob, David, George, Patrick, Louisa, and Susan to farm his land for the ensuing year. The labor contract specified what Eubank would pay each of them and that he supplied lodging and…

In this contract, Catharine L. Cate agreed to work as a cook for B. J. Johns for the rate of $5 per month along with lodging and rations ("found"). They agreed that any changes to the contract would be made before a local Freedmen's Bureau agent,…