This convention operated largely in the South and tended to decline. In 1873 the West revived its organization under the name of the Baptist Association of the Western States and Territories, while the northern churches adhered to another organization called the New England Missionary Convention, organized in 1875. In the course of time these two bodies so expanded as to embrace the whole country, yet in 1880 certain Baptists here and there formed a national body to do work in foreign lands, designating it the Baptist Foreign Mission Convention of the United States. The feeling, however, that there should be a concentration of the efforts of all Baptists directed through one national body to a particular point of attack led to a more significant national meeting of the Negro Baptists held in St. Louis in 1886. The work of the Baptist Foreign Mission Convention was later so modified that all of the national and international church work of the denomination was unified through the organization of the National Baptist Convention.

That these Baptists despite their excess of liberty succeeded as well as they did, was due in a measure to the fact that they exercised the good judgment in not immediately getting too far from their friends. The Negroes used the same polity, the same literature, and sometimes the same national agencies as the white Baptists. The southern Baptists were then less interested in these communicants whom, some say, they gladly got rid of when they could no longer dictate their spiritual development as the master did that of the slave; but the northern Baptists felt obligated to send their missionaries among the freedmen. These apostles to the lowly brought words of good cheer, expounded the gospel, established new churches, and distributed books for the enlightenment of the masses. Among some of these lowly people these men were received as apostles of old, welcomed to a new harvest which had long been waiting, for the laborers among the lowly were few.

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CHAPTER X RELIGIOUS EDUCATION AS A PREPARATION

These Christian workers, however, cared not so much about proselyting as they did about education, the greatest need of the freedmen. The Baptists, Methodists, and Presbyterians, who had considerable communicants among the Negroes prior to the Civil War, took the lead in this movement, establishing at strategic points schools which they believed would become centers of culture for the whole race. The Baptists established Shaw University at Raleigh in 1865; Roger Williams at Nashville and Morehouse at Atlanta in 1867; Leland at New Orleans and Benedict at Columbia in 1871. The Free-will Baptists founded Storer College at Harpers Ferry in 1867. The Methodists, who were no less active, established Walden at Nashville in 1865, Rust at Holly Springs in 1866, Morgan at Baltimore in 1867, Haven Academy at Waynesboro in 1868, Claflin at Orangeburg in 1869, and Clark at Atlanta in 1870. The Presbyterians, who could not compete with the Baptists and Methodists in proselyting Negroes, largely restricted their efforts to the establishment of Biddle at Charlotte in 1867 and to the promotion of the work begun at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, established as Ashmun Institute in 1854. The Episcopal Church showing the tender mercy of the wicked, established St. Augustine at Raleigh in 1867. The American Missionary Association, an agency of the Congregational Church, established Avery Institute at Charleston, Ballard Normal School at Macon, and Washburn at Beaufort, North Carolina, in 1865; Trinity at Athens, Alabama, Gregory at Wilmington, North Carolina, and Fisk at Nashville in 1866; Talladega in Alabama, Emerson at Mobile, Storrs at Atlanta, and Beach at Savannah in 1867; Hampton Institute in Virginia, Knox at Athens, Burwell at Selma, now at Florence; Ely Normal in Louisville in 1868; Straight University at New Orleans, Tougaloo in Mississippi, Le Moyne at Memphis, and Lincoln at Marion, Alabama, in 1869; Dorchester Academy at McIntosh, and the Albany Normal in Georgia in 1870. The Congregationalists, moreover, figured in the establishment of Howard University, which was chartered by the United States Government in 1867 with provision for the education of all persons regardless of race.

Some other less effective forces were at work during this period accomplishing here and there results seemingly unimportant but in the end productive of much good. In 1862 Miss Towne and Miss Murray, members of the Society of Friends, established the Penn School on St. Helena Island. Cornelia Hancock, a Philadelphia woman of the same sect, founded the Laing School at Mount Pleasant, near Charleston, South Carolina. Martha Schofield, another Friend of Pennsylvania, opened at Aiken in 1865 the Schofield Industrial School. In 1864 Alida Clark, supported by Friends in Indiana, engaged in relief work among Negro orphans in Helena, Arkansas, and in 1869 established near that city what is now known as Southland College. The Reformed Presbyterians maintained a school at Natchez between 1864 and 1866, and in 1874 established Knox Academy at Selma, Alabama. The United Presbyterians opened a sort of clandestine school in Nashville in 1863, and in 1875 established Knoxville College as a center for a group of schools for Negroes in Eastern Tennessee, Virginia, North Carolina, and Northern Alabama. Franklinton Christian College, maintained by the American Christian Convention, was opened in 1878 and chartered in 1890. Stillman Institute was established by the southern Presbyterians at Tuscaloosa in 1876. Paine College was founded at Augusta in 1884.

With these striking examples of sacrifice in behalf of the education of their race, the Negro churches themselves began to participate in the extension of education as a means to spread the gospel through an intelligent ministry and to enable the laity to appreciate it as the great leverage in the uplift of the man far down. The African Methodists had through the efforts of Bishop Payne already undertaken the establishment of Union Seminary near Columbus, which was finally merged with Wilberforce, established by the Methodists in 1858 near Xenia, Ohio. The African Methodists also established Western University in Kansas. To extend their educational work in the South, however, this same denomination established Allen University at Columbia in 1881; Morris Brown at Atlanta in 1885; and later other schools at Waco, Texas; Jackson, Mississippi; and Selma, Alabama. The Zion Methodist Church too was planning the establishment of Livingstone College in 1879 and removed to the present site of Salisbury in 1882, was popularized extensively by the eloquent J. C. Price. Early emphasizing education, the Colored Methodist Church opened Lane College at Jackson, Tennessee, in 1882 and later established other schools at Birmingham, Alabama, Holly Springs, Mississippi, and Tyler, Texas. With the support of the American Baptist Home Mission Society the Negro Baptists have done likewise and, moreover, have established independently of the whites other such schools as the Virginia Theological Seminary and College at Lynchburg, largely developed by the talented Gregory W. Hayes; the William J. Simmons University of Louisville; the Arkansas Baptist College, now under the direction of the efficient J. A. Booker; and the National Training School for Girls in Washington, D. C., an institution so well managed by the noted orator and indefatigable worker, Nannie H. Burroughs.

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To make proper use of the schools various organizations coöperating under the name of Freedmen's Aid Societies sent workers into the South to meet every need of the Negro. These efforts were not altogether those of the church, but so many churchmen were connected therewith that the story of the Negro church would be incomplete without it. Coöperating with these agencies, the American Missionary Association had in 1868 as many as 532 missionaries and teachers working among the Negroes, spending as much as $400,000 a year. Then there came the National Freedmen's Relief Association of New York with 14 teachers and funds amounting to $400,000 and $250,000 in supplies; the Pennsylvania Freedmen's Relief Association or Philadelphia Society with a force of 60 teachers and a fund of $250,000 in 1865; the Western Freedmen's Aid Commission with receipts aggregating $227,000 to support teachers in the South in 1865; the Northwestern Freedmen's Aid Commission sending to the South in 1865 as many as 50 teachers. In the District of Columbia, among the Negroes themselves, there were organized and operated the National Freedmen's Relief Association and the National Association for the Relief of Destitute Colored women and children, the latter being supported by funds appropriated by Congress.

The Friends, a distinctly religious body, early participated in the same work through various local agencies. Among the first was the Friends Association of Philadelphia and its vicinity for the Relief of Colored Freedmen, which between 1863 and 1867 expended $210,500 among the freedmen in Virginia and North Carolina. More interested in education and religion, the Friends' Association for the Aid and Elevation of the Freedmen worked among the Negroes of Virginia and South Carolina, where between 1862 and 1869 they maintained 14 schools with 732 students and expended for schools, seeds, supplies, donations to asylums, and 50,000 copies of the New Testament, $57,500. The New England Friends began work among the freedmen in 1864 in Washington, D. C., operating there a store at cost prices and conducting day, evening, and Sunday schools. Finally there coöperated with the New England Friends those of Maryland organized in 1864 as the Baltimore Association for the Moral and Educational Improvement of the Colored People. This society was fortunate in receiving annually for some time a subsidy from the city of Baltimore to the amount of $20,000.

Foreign friends of the race were equally active in promoting education and religion among the freedmen. In 1863, members of the Society of Friends in England contributed to this relief work £3,000. The following year £5,000 came from this source in England and £1,500 from Ireland. That same year there came through the New England Society $2,100 from the London Freedmen's Aid Society, smaller sums from France and Ireland, and $1,313 from five Parsee firms in London. Similar contributions were secured from abroad by other relief societies organized in the United States. According to facts obtained by the Freedman's Bureau the English aid societies contributed to the relief of the Negroes between 1865 and 1869 at least $500,000. Dr. J. L. M. Curry believed that the total receipts in money and supplies reached $1,000,000.

The facts set forth above well represent the activities of the Friends and of the Congregationalists, Free Will Baptists, Wesleyans, Methodists, and Reformed Dutch, for whom the American Missionary Association served as an agent; but there were in the field several churches working independently. Among these were the Methodists, Baptists and Presbyterians. To systematize its efforts the Methodists organized in 1866 "The Freedmen Aid Society of the Methodist Church." The first efforts of this society were directed toward primary, normal, and higher education. In 1868 the Methodists had then established through this agency 29 schools with 51 teachers and 5,000 students in Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, and Georgia. By the end of the sixth year of its existence the receipts of the society amounted to $315,100.

During these years the American Baptist Home Missionary Association supported by Presbyterians and United Brethren in Christ, was sending workers right in the wake of the Union armies invading the Mississippi Valley. The Baptists had opened a school for Negroes in Alexandria in 1862, and by 1864 had sent missionaries into the District of Columbia, Virginia, the Carolinas, Tennessee, and Louisiana. Because of the freedom exercised by the Baptists locally, there was among them much duplication of effort which resulted in confusion; but the American Baptist Home Missionary Association finally emerged as a unifying factor among these workers. This society had made such rapid strides by 1867 that it had in the field 50 ordained ministers and a large number of Negro students in training for the work. The Free-Will Baptists while coöperating with the American Home Missionary Association made some efforts by themselves. They carried on some work in the Shenandoah Valley and in the West with 40 missionaries and teachers and 3,467 students.

The Presbyterians also took this work seriously. The General Assembly in session at Pittsburg in 1865 appointed a special committee on freedmen, with 18 members, two of whom were designated as secretary and treasurer. As there were already in the field 36 teachers as missionaries supported by local societies, this general bureau took over their work. The following year there were in the field 55 missionaries, reporting 3,256 day pupils, 2,043 Sunday School scholars, and six churches with 526 members, in Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina, and Kansas. The income for this work was $25,350 in 1865, together with 30 or 40 boxes of clothing; but between 1865 and 1870 this denomination expended $244,700 to maintain their workers, who in 1820 had increased to 157, of whom 105 were Negroes. The Old School and United Presbyterians did not accomplish so much but they had a few missions here and there. In 1864, there were in Washington five schools with 174 students supported by the Reformed Presbyterian Board of Missions with an expenditure of $3,000 a year.

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Some other sporadic efforts in behalf of the freedmen deserve at least casual mention. The Protestant Episcopal Freedmen's Commission was organized in 1865 to engage in this work, but with the exception of some physical relief extended the unfortunate it accomplished very little. From The Massachusetts Episcopal Association for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge among the Freedmen and other Colored Persons of the South and Southwest, organized that same year, still less assistance came. The American Bible Society up to 1868, however, distributed a million copies of scriptural and religious works among the freedmen. The American Tract Society also sent out such works, opened some schools, and conducted church services in Washington.

The Negroes, although poor in the goods of this world, soon made sufficient sacrifice materially to give impetus to the relief work among themselves. The Negroes in Maryland gave $23,371 to aid the relief work promoted by the Baltimore Association for the Moral and Educational Improvement of the Colored People. They organized bodies of their own, moreover, to participate directly in this uplift work. In 1864 there was established in Brooklyn "The African Civilization Society," which gradually extended its work through churches and schools into the District of Columbia, the Carolinas, Maryland, Virginia, Georgia, Mississippi, and Louisiana. The reports of this organization show that in 1868 it employed 129 teachers instructing 8,000 students at an expense of $53,700. For some years the society operated in Brooklyn an orphan asylum with the aid of the Freedmen's Bureau, but in 1869 the management found itself embarrassed for lack of funds. From 1864 to 1868 the African Methodists so extended its mission and school work as to have 40,000 Sunday school pupils and 39,000 volumes in school libraries.

It will be interesting to mention some of the men in the North, who constituted the management of the home offices of these aid societies and who used their time and influence in raising the necessary funds. Among the officers of the American Freedmen's Aid Commission, a sort of general agency in New York for several relief societies, were William Lloyd Garrison, the famous abolitionist, as vice-president; Frederick Law Olmsted, the noted traveler through the South prior to the war, serving as general secretary; and, as directors, John G. Whittier, the anti-slavery poet, Francis G. Shaw, another abolitionist, and Henry Ward Beecher, the true and tried friend of the Negro. Lyman Abbott became general secretary of the combined organizations. The American Freedmen's Aid Commission and The American Union Commission added to their staff William Cullen Bryant, Phillip Brooks, Bellamy Storer, and Edward L. Pierce, who had done so much for the contrabands in South Carolina prior to the close of the war. When most of these societies in a convention in Cleveland united under the name of the American Freedmen's Union Commission, they had for president Chief Justice Chase, who not only by word but by actual sacrifice of his means did much to promote the Christian education of the freedmen.

Among the supporters of the New England Society there appeared many workers known before as friends of the Negro. The Rev. Edward Everett Hale and J. M. Manning were most active in Boston in raising funds and finding teachers and missionaries to work in Negro schools. Gov. John A. Andrew served as the first president of the New England Freedmen's Aid Society, Edward Atkinson as secretary, and James Freeman Clarke as vice-president. And from New England came scores of workers, following up the work commenced by those gallant soldiers, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, and Robert Gould Shaw.

Southern people were not exactly neutral on the enlightenment of the Negro. They did not, as a whole, seriously object to it and in the course of time there appeared among them men of their own group fearlessly advocating Negro education. Dr. A. G. Haygood, a distinguished churchman among the Methodists, deserves here some mention. He represented in a large measure the best thought in the South concerning the Negro. He came forward to impress upon the South the claims of the Negro on the "sympathy and helpfulness of all who were more fortunate, especially those who called themselves the followers of Jesus Christ." This sentiment he set forth in a book, entitled Our Brother in Black, which struck the North with agreeable surprise and led the South to think more seriously of another solution of the so-called Negro problem. Invited to be the Director of the John F. Slater Fund established soon thereafter, Dr. Haygood had an opportunity to spend nine years translating into action the theory set forth in his book.

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Less interested in Christian education but nevertheless effective in promoting generally the cause which made the situation of the Negro church so much better in the South was Dr. J. L. M. Curry, a lawyer and congressman, representative of the Southern Confederacy. His work as Director of the Peabody Fund, easily connected with the systematic efforts of Dr. Amory Dwight Mayo, a northern man, who investigated the Negro schools in the South, set forth methods for their improvement and kept the North and the South well informed as to the forces at work among Negroes for the good of all. The southern churches as a whole during this period, however, did not so quickly forget their prejudices as to do anything of consequence for the good of the Negroes. The Negro had been begrudgingly granted his freedom and the northern teacher and missionary seemed like interlopers to be tolerated but not worthy of coöperation. The South, moreover, could not have done very much for Negro missions for the reason that immediately after the war it was decidedly impoverished; for many of the aid societies which assisted the Negroes ministered also to the whites in the desolated areas.

These missionary teachers came with a determination to do something like that of Francis Xavier, Henry Martyn, and Adoniram Judson, who bore the religious message to the Orient. They came to change the character of the freedmen through an intelligent religion based upon actual knowledge of God as revealed in the Bible. Among these workers one should mention Rev. D. L. Johnson, a teacher of refugees in Washington; Solomon Peck, a volunteer teacher of the contrabands at Beaufort, South Carolina, in 1862; Horace Bumstead, afterward President of Atlanta University; and Gen. O. O. Howard, President of Howard University.

The sort of education promoted by these workers will further explain the significance of the movement. All of the church aid societies and many of those beyond the control of churchmen had for their purpose the industrial, social, intellectual, and religious improvement of the freedmen. The capstone of the structure they would build then had its foundation in moral and religious instruction. Most workers, therefore, were chosen with regard to their fitness to function in these positions as missionaries in the school room. Few persons volunteering to do such work at that time could be devoid of a sympathetic nature, but more than this was required to build in these new citizens that Christian character which would make them helpful to their fellows and useful in the work of the Master. While education was necessary for the Negroes as for all other persons, the chief need of the Negro, as most of these workers observed it, was religion.

Acting upon this idea, therefore, almost every Negro school provided in some way for religious instruction. If the course of study were not sufficiently broad to base thereupon a more advanced course, there was usually provided some instruction in the English Bible. In case the course of study became so pretentious as to style itself a college curriculum, there was usually added the regular course in theology, which, in spite of the fact that it was the only professional work in which such institutions engaged, was sufficient for them to take over the title of university. Although lacking adequate understanding sometimes, however, these institutions had so much of the right spirit that they accomplished all but wonders. While they did not always hold the students long enough to impart all that a college graduate or a professional man should know, they so inspired the youth with the love of study that the habit once formed led them into fields of research and endeavor which men much better trained often failed to reach.

The emphasis of the northern churches upon instruction rather than upon mere proselyting immediately after the war, therefore, was not misplaced. They no doubt wrought more wisely than they thought. The Negro already had his predilections toward the Methodists and the Baptists and the mere contest for the increase of church membership to be recruited among a people, the masses of whom could not then serve God intelligently would have been love's labor lost. Northern denominations wisely coöperated with one another regardless of sectarian lines to do whatever was needful whether or not the largest contributor to the success of the enterprise received credit for it. Negroes who went from these schools had, of course, the impress of the respective denominations to which they owed their education, but very often, as it was in the case of the Presbyterians, the denomination lost to the others of a more popular appeal most of the men which it trained. Lincoln and Biddle Universities have by their training of men who, on leaving school joined the Methodists or Baptists, contributed to the success of these denominations. When one thinks of Walter H. Brooks, the popular Baptist minister in Washington, and of Joseph C. Price, the idol of the Zion Church, as graduates of Lincoln University, this contention becomes convincing.

With all of these workers in the field promoting religious education without regard to creed, the Negro churches soon had a much larger number of men equipped to extend their work. The minister who could neither read nor write became an exception to the rule and when still ambitious in spite of such shortcomings he sometimes ceased to have a following. Preaching became more of an appeal to the intellect than an effort to stir one's emotions. Sermons were made as an effort to minister to a need observed by careful consideration of the circumstances of the persons served, hymns in keeping with the thought of the discourse harmonized therewith, and prayers became the occasion of thanksgiving for blessings which the intelligent pastor could lead his congregation to appreciate and of a petition for God's help to live more righteously. In fact, the tone of worship in the Negro church had been as a result of the post bellum efforts in education very much changed as early as 1875 and decidedly so by 1885.

Given such an impetus the work of the Christian church among Negroes was rapidly carried forward. Within a few years the neglected masses of the freedmen unto whom the gospel had never been successfully preached were generally evangelized and provided with some sort of facilities for religious instruction. Publication societies sold through colporters and missionaries religious literature adapted to the special needs of the freedmen and religious workers organized in churches circles devoted to the study of Christian doctrine and the Bible. As the church thus liberalized offered the Negroes a much better opportunity for development than the other institutions, many of which for years after emancipation were regarded as spheres which the Negro should not enter, the freedmen specialized in the study of this one concern thrown open to them, mastering in a few years the principles of the Christian religion and the story of the Bible to the extent that their friends and enemies were all but startled. As a result, therefore, Negroes of to-day have a much more thorough knowledge of these fundamentals than most white men.

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CHAPTER XI THE CALL OF POLITICS

There were during the Reconstruction period, moreover, so many other necessities with which the Negroes had to be supplied that the Negro preacher, often the only one in a community usually sufficiently well developed to lead the people, had to devote his time not only to church work but to every matter of concern to the race. In some respects, the Negroes after the war were not far removed from the conditions obtaining in the North before the war. Many of their former problems still confronted them. The chief difference was that after the war the Negroes had fighting ground on which to stand to wage a battle for those things which, having been begrudgingly granted, were being gradually taken away.

That the Negro preacher should continue a man of so many interests was but a natural consequence of the trend in the development of the race in this country. Up to this time the Negroes had established and maintained only one institution of their own. That was their church. When the time came for them to exercise other functions in society this one institution had to be overworked to supply the needs of others. Inasmuch as the church then became the center of so many activities the minister in charge often had to take the lead in shaping the policy of his people that they might advance in the right way. Ministers who abandoned their pulpits for the political world may be condemned as deserting their post of duty; but when one considers the call of their race in the situation in which it was and the valuable services some of them rendered, he cannot hastily conclude that the race thereby lost more than it gained. History should be studied sympathetically. The devotee to the faith should not denounce these men as recreant to Christianity and the student of politics must not dub them as interlopers in a forbidden field. Never before had a race been liberated under such circumstances. Never before had a group in such an undeveloped state been called upon to do so many things in such a short time. That the procedure of the race in this infinitely complex situation differed somewhat from that of others who had centuries to do what the Negroes were required to accomplish in a day, should be no cause of surprise.

In this respect, moreover, the Negroes did not differ widely from the whites. It is true that there has not been any period in the history of the whites when such a large percentage of the ministry freely participated in matters of the world, but the Negro minister found in the record of the whites precedents for all of his deviation from the customary course of the preacher of the Word. In their frontier condition the pioneering whites had often been reduced to the necessity of following the leadership of the versatile minister just as the Negroes were during the Reconstruction period. Among them the minister was sometimes the man of all work. He had a farm or business from which he obtained most of his means of subsistence; he of necessity often studied law and practiced in the local courts; he not infrequently aspired to office and, if successful, sometimes forgot his beginnings. And even within the memory of the living, examples are not wanting. Ex-Governor Atkinson of West Virginia was a minister in the Methodist Church and, like the Negro during these trying days, answered the call of his constituents. James A. Garfield, who attained the presidency of the United States, abandoned this exalted profession for the more interesting rôle of politics.

The salient facts of the careers of some of these ministers thus allured are more than interesting. Dr. William J. Simmons after being educated and engaged in the Baptist ministry for some time entered politics in Florida about 1874. Well received by his neighbors, he soon became county clerk and then county commissioner. He served as chairman of the county campaign committee and a member of the district congressional committee. In the campaign of Hayes and Tilden, Simmons was a conspicuous figure. He stumped the State for the Republican candidates with such success as materially to aid the cause in that he helped to raise the Republican majority of his county from 525 to 986 when the whole State gave Hayes a majority of only 147. Dr. Simmons later settled in Louisville, where he distinguished himself as a minister and as the founder of what is now known as the William J. Simmons University.

Dr. James Poindexter's career shows how difficult it was for the Negro ministers to avoid politics. Coming from Virginia, as a pioneer among those who sought better opportunities in the Northwest, he was at once a serious leader. He became a minister in the Baptist Church even before the Civil War and never actually sought an official position, hoping rather to maintain himself as a fearless speaker and writer in behalf of his oppressed people. Yet he too was to some extent attracted to politics in self-defense. He was the first man of color in Ohio nominated for the House of Delegates, but was defeated. We find him some years later serving as the foreman of a grand jury. He was appointed a trustee of the Ohio University at Athens but the Democratic Senate of the State would not confirm him. He was for four years a member of the City Council of Columbus, serving that body as vice-president. Later he was appointed to fill a vacancy on the School Board of Columbus, was elected to the position at the expiration of the term, and reëlected against great odds over a Democratic opponent in 1887.

Poindexter's position in this case, like that of so many others, may be stated in his own words. Addressing an audience on the "Pulpit and Politics," he said: "Nor can a preacher more than any other citizen plead his religious work or the sacredness of that work as an exemption from duty. Going to the Bible to learn the relation of the pulpit to politics, and accepting the prophets, Christ, and apostles, and the pulpit of their times, and their precepts and examples as the guide of the pulpit to-day, I think that their conclusion will be that wherever there is a sin to be rebuked, no matter by whom committed, and ill to be averted or good to be achieved by our country or mankind, there is a place for the pulpit to make itself felt and heard. The truth is, all the help the preachers and all other good and worthy citizens can give by taking hold of politics is needed in order to keep the government out of bad hands and secure the ends for which governments are formed."

Dr. J. T. White, another preacher of the Reconstruction period, attained much distinction in this field. Fortunate in having acquired a fundamental education in Indianapolis prior to the war, he easily made an impression at the Consolidated Baptist Convention in St. Louis in 1865 when he received a call to a small Baptist Church of Helena, Arkansas. Among these communicants he toiled successfully without concern as to other affairs until 1868, when the reconstruction of the State was begun. He was induced to present himself as a candidate for delegate to the constitutional convention and was elected. He figured conspicuously in framing the constitution and canvassed the State to secure its ratification. He then became a part of the restored State government, serving his fellow citizens as a member of the House of Delegates, to which he was twice re-elected. He was chosen to serve one term in the State Senate, after which he was appointed by the Governor, Commissioner of Public Works and Internal Improvements. During this same period, however, he was doing his best work in building and edifying churches at Helena and Little Rock, and extending Baptist influence throughout the State and nation.

G. W. Gayles, a Mississippian of this type, acquired before his emancipation enough education to read intelligently. Having an inclination to study the Bible, he aspired to the ministry, for which he was set apart by a council of reputable Baptist ministers of Greenville in 1867. Going to Bolivar county to find a more inviting field, he became the pastor of the Kindling Altar Church in which he made an honorable record. He soon became involved in public affairs, however, as is evidenced by his appointment as member of the Board of Police for a district in Bolivar County by Governor A. Ames. The following year he was appointed Justice of the Peace in that county by Governor J. L. Alcorn, but later in that same month he was made a supervisor of another district in that county. He was then elected a member of the Mississippi Legislature, serving a term of two years in the lower house and then as State Senator from the 28th district, beginning 1877 and continuing into the eighties, when there had been no other Negro in that body since 1875.

In spite of his political activities, however, Gayles did not abandon religious work. Beginning in 1872, he served for many years as missionary for the counties of Bolivar and Sunflower and then in that capacity for Coahoma. Appreciating his worth, the Baptist State Missionary Convention made him its corresponding secretary in 1874 and president in 1876, with the power to edit a denominational organ known as The Baptist Signal, by which he showed himself a national as well as a State character.

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Jesse Freeman Boulden was forced into politics against his will. In Philadelphia he acquired an elementary education. He later embraced religion in Maryland, and in 1853 connected himself with the Union Baptist Church in Philadelphia. He then became pastor of the Zion Baptist Church in Chicago, where he was succeeded by Richard DeBaptiste as pastor of the combined Olivet Baptist Church in 1863. As the war was then turning out favorable to the Union forces, Boulden called together at Brooklyn, Illinois, in 1864, a group of Illinois Baptist churches known as the Wood River Association to consider the importance of following the army and looking after the interests of the denomination in the South. This work then engaged the attention of Mr. Boulden to the extent that he gave up his church in 1865 and settled at Natchez, Mississippi. This was in many respects the turning point of his career. He immediately plunged into political matters as a leader to the manner born. He presented to Congress the first petition of that State praying that Negroes be granted the right of franchise. Boulden held the first emancipation celebration in 1866, and began to lecture to Negroes on the duty of the hour. Thus interested, he was made a factor in the organization of the Republican party in the north-eastern part of the State. He made the first Republican speech in the court house at Columbus and was a member of the first Mississippi Republican State Convention in 1867.

In all of this, however, he was not seeking personal gain; for brought out against his will as a candidate for the lower house of the legislature, he once thought of declining, but finally yielded, thinking that he might be able to do some good. In this position he took the lead in piloting through the legislature the election of Hiram Revells as United States Senator, and, after helping B. K. Bruce to become Sergeant-at-Arms of the Senate, used his influence to make him also a member of the upper national body. He, like many others of his time, however, never deserted the ministry altogether for politics. After serving various churches and editing The Baptist Reflector of Columbus, Mississippi, he rendered his most valuable service as general agent of the American Baptist Home Mission Society for the State of New York.

P. H. A. Braxton, pastor of the Calvary Baptist Church in Baltimore, and the Rev. D. F. Rivers, once a member of the Tennessee Legislature, seemed to have had their day in politics and then entered upon the ministry in contradistinction to most men of their time. Leaving the farm on which he was born a slave in Virginia, Braxton went into the stave business. Entering politics in King William county soon thereafter, however, he became constable in 1872, acquitting himself with honor. In the meantime he studied law with some degree of success. He then went to Washington, D.C., where he received an appointment in the custom house service in which he was converted in 1875. It seems that he lost the desire for politics thereafter. He was commissioned to preach in 1875, and appointed general agent of the consolidated American Baptist Missionary Convention in 1878. He took charge of the Calvary Baptist Church in Baltimore in 1879 and there made a record for himself and his denomination as a forceful preacher, successful organizer, and radical reformer. Rev. Mr. Rivers, after toiling in the West, came to Washington where he is still an active pastor.

Allen Allensworth prepared for the ministry at the Ely Normal School and at Roger Williams University. He rose rapidly in the denomination, serving the Kentucky Baptists as their financial agent, the pastor of churches at Elizabethtown, Franklin, Louisville, Bowling Green, and Cincinnati, and as a missionary in the employ of the American Baptist Publication Society. During these years, however, he was equally active as a leader in politics. The Republicans of Kentucky made much use of him as a campaigner, as he was a speaker of well-known power. By this party he was chosen to serve as an elector for the State-at-large on the Garfield-Arthur ticket in 1880 and was sent as delegate from that State to the National Republican Convention which met in Chicago in 1884. No one knows how far his political activity would have gone, had he not entered the army as chaplain before the Negro political organization in the South had collapsed.

Christopher H. Payne, who with the possible exception of Mordecai W. Johnson, has been the most intelligent preacher of color to toil in West Virginia, shows in his career how the political world finally absorbed some Negro ministers altogether. He began as a teacher in West Virginia, where by dint of energy he mastered the fundamentals of education. He then became converted and on realizing a call to the ministry, entered the Richmond Institute where he distinguished himself as a promising scholar. After serving the American Baptist Publication Society as a Sunday school missionary and as pastor of churches in Virginia and West Virginia, he became interested in politics in which he participated not only as a speaker but as an editor. He spent some time reading law, secured admission to the bar, and practiced in the local courts. In the course of time, he became more widely known as a figure in politics than as a churchman, although he was at the same time serving as pastor of some church and presiding over Baptist Associations and for years the Baptist State Convention of West Virginia. In 1896, he was elected a member of the West Virginia Legislature, the first Negro to be so honored in that State. He was later appointed a deputy Collector of Internal Revenue under Nathan B. Scott, and in 1903 was appointed Consul to the Virgin Islands, where he served fourteen years. Since the recent purchase of these possessions by the United States he has remained there to practice law.

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Bishop W. B. Derrick of the African Methodist Episcopal Church also had a political career. From a brief career on the high seas he enlisted in the United States Navy during the Civil War and upon being converted entered the ministry of the African Methodist Church, serving with distinction in the Virginia Conference. Having by the end of the seventies attained this position of influence, he was induced to take an active part in the politics of that State at the time when one of the local parties desired to readjust the State debt. He allied himself with the "Funders," the party in favor of paying the debt as it was contracted, since he believed that his attitude was in harmony with the principles of the National Republican Party. Thinking that his people were about to be made tools in the hands of ambitious and unscrupulous men, Dr. Derrick fearlessly denounced the "Readjusters" as a clique seeking to repudiate the payment of an honest debt. As this contest developed into a vindictive political battle engendering much local strife out of which the "Readjusters" emerged victors, Dr. Derrick, deeming it best to leave Virginia, resigned his charge and spent some time visiting his relatives in the West Indies. He returned to this country to resume his ministry in which he so rapidly developed that he became a popular bishop of his church.

Bishop H. M. Turner, one of the outstanding men of the Negro race, had his day also in politics. He equipped himself for the ministry by private instruction obtained under adverse circumstances, joined the Methodist Church in 1848, and transferred to the African Methodists in 1867, rising rapidly in this last-mentioned connection from the position of an itinerant preacher in St. Louis to an eldership in Washington, and a chaplaincy in the United States Army. During these years, however, he was most active in politics. In 1867 he was appointed by the National Republican Committee to superintend the organization of the Negroes in Georgia. In this capacity he stumped the State and wrote many articles which he spread broadcast to direct his people in his way. That year he was elected a member of the State Constitutional Convention. He was next chosen a member of the legislature the following year and re-elected in 1870, when he was expelled on account of his color. President Grant appointed him post-master of Macon in 1869; but he had to resign on account of persecution. He was afterward appointed Coast Inspector of Customs and United States Government Detective, but after holding the position a few years he resigned it to meet the demands of the church whose cause, in spite of his political activities, he had never abandoned, and whose good judgment made him the influential bishop of the denomination.

Speaking of his career himself, he said on an occasion: "And my labors have not stopped in the religious sphere, but it is well known to every one that I have done more work in the political field than any five men in the State, if you will take out Colonel Bryant. I first organized the Republican party in this State, and have worked for its maintenance and perpetuity as no other man in the State has. I have put more men in the field, made more speeches, organized more union leagues, political associations, clubs, and have written more campaign documents, that received larger circulation, than any other man in the State. Why, one campaign document I wrote alone was so acceptable that it took four million copies to satisfy the public. And as you are well aware, these labors have not been performed amid sunshine and prosperity. I have been the constant target of Democratic abuse and venom, and white Republican jealousy. The newspapers have teemed with all kind of slander, accusing me of every crime in the catalogue of villainy; I have been arrested and tried on some of the wildest charges and most groundless accusations ever distilled from the laboratory of hell. Witnesses have been paid as high as four thousand dollars to swear me into the penitentiary; white preachers have sworn that I tried to get up insurrections, etc., a crime punishable with death; and all such deviltry has been resorted to for the purpose of breaking me down, and with all they have not hurt a hair of my head, nor even bothered my brain longer than they were going through the farce of adjudication.... I invariably let them say their say and do their do; while they were studying against me, I was studying for the interest of the church, and working for the success of my party."

Richard Harvey Cain, converted in 1841 and installed as a preacher in the African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1844, saw himself rising to a position of usefulness after his training at Wilberforce, followed by his pastoral work in the New York and South Carolina Conferences. Although he had unusually extended his field of labor by successful efforts at Summerville, Lincolnville, Georgetown, Marion, and Sumter, he had too much energy to be confined altogether to the church. Interesting himself in whatever touched the life of his people, he edited a Republican newspaper in 1868. He secured his election as a member of the Reconstruction constitutional convention in South Carolina and played an important rôle in rebuilding the government of that State along liberal lines. He served two years as State Senator from the Charleston District. In 1879 he was given a much more honorable recognition in being elected a member of the Forty-third Congress. He was again thus honored in being elected to the Forty-fifth Congress in 1881 and "served with distinction and marked ability," making most eloquent speeches in the advocacy of civil rights for the Negro.

His close connection with the church, however, was still maintained, for he was elected bishop in 1880 and assigned to the Louisiana and Texas district. Speaking of him as a man remarkable for uniting these two fields, Bishop Derrick said: "He surely could be considered a captain of the hosts, one of the kindliest and pleasantest of Christian statesmen and a man of clear good judgment blended with a strong resolution and firmness, which made him the master of many difficult situations in the active and political career which marked his statesmanship with brilliant success."

Bishop B. W. Arnett, one of the most popular men who have hitherto risen in the African Methodist Church, served his people also in these two ways. When political opportunities were first offered the Negroes in the South he had already served as a teacher and had passed through the gradations of the ministry to a position of influence in his denomination in Ohio. The need was too urgent and the call too imperative for him not to participate in the affairs of his State and nation. Once in politics, he easily became a commanding figure even in Ohio, where because of the small black population a Negro could not secure the following easily obtained at that time in the Southern States. In 1885 he was elected to the Ohio Legislature from Greene County, thus securing the opportunity to fight for the repeal of the nefarious "Black Laws" which disgraced the statute books of Ohio prior to the Civil War. Arnett piloted through the lower house the bill to this effect and with Senator Ely supporting it in the Senate, the feat was triumphantly accomplished. Never did a Negro serve his people to better advantage. At the same time he was using his influence to correct national abuses and was earnestly laboring for the extension of his church, which he honorably served as financial secretary, statistician, and finally as bishop.

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Bishop James W. Hood, of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, in his day one of the most influential men of color in the United States, found himself also in the political world. He began as a preacher in Nova Scotia in 1860, served later at Bridgeport, Connecticut, and then went to North Carolina, where his successful work exalted him to the bishopric in 1872. His very going to North Carolina, however, had a political setting. He went to Newbern as a missionary under General Butler's invitation to the churches to send missionaries, even while the place was under the fire of the Confederate forces. When the war in that area was cleared up and Reconstruction was undertaken Bishop Hood was among the first to participate therein. He was elected president of the convention of Negroes assembled at Raleigh in October, 1865, one of the first, if not the first, political convocation of this sort ever assembled in the South. On this occasion he so fearlessly advocated equal rights for the Negro that he was warned by the people around that his life would be in danger, if he did not desist therefrom. In 1867 he was elected as delegate to the constitutional convention of North Carolina, in which he took such an active part in framing the fundamental law, incorporating into it such liberal provisions for homesteads and public schools that it was spoken of by the reactionaries as Hood's constitution until it was amended in 1875. He served as a magistrate under the provisional government in North Carolina and later became a deputy Collector of Internal Revenue for the United States.

In 1868 he was appointed an agent of the State Board of Education and Assistant Superintendent of Public Instruction, receiving a salary of $1,500 a year; but he did not abandon his church work, having built up a large congregation at Charlotte during the three years he served in these positions. He traveled also in the interest of the Freedmen's Bureau in the capacity of an Assistant Superintendent. Thus in a position to help his people, Bishop Hood had in 1870 as many as 49,000 Negro children in school. He had established for Negroes a department for the deaf, dumb, and blind and had about sixty inmates under care and instruction at the expense of the State. He hoped to establish a State university, but the undoing of Reconstruction prevented him from reaching that end. He was named in 1872 by the Republican caucus as their candidate for Secretary of State, but he declined the honor. He served that year as delegate at large to the National Republican Convention, which nominated Grant the second time. In 1876 he was chosen temporary chairman of the Republican State Convention, which he served with much satisfaction.

This account of the Negro in politics, however, does not establish the fact that either the majority or even the best prepared of the Negro ministry devoted all of their time to politics. There were many striking examples to the contrary. Bishop Daniel Payne lived long after the Civil War to promote education and religion, and when he died was regarded by many as the most useful man of the race. Bishop Lee, as President of Wilberforce University and a functionary of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, rendered his race constructive service. Dr. Alexander Crummell took no active part in politics, although he fearlessly spoke out for the political and civil rights of his race. Dr. J. Sella Martin, prominent in the ministry before and after the Civil War, attained the distinction of one of the most eloquent men of his race without permitting politics to consume much of his time. Bishop Grant, one of the most useful men of his denomination, did not find it necessary to seek honors beyond the limits of the church. John Jasper, known to fame as the Baptist preacher of the Sun-Moving theory, established for himself throughout Virginia and adjacent States a reputation for piety and sincerity, which, without political influence, made him a power in the country.

Among these consecrated churchmen, moreover, none can be considered a better example than Bishop B. T. Tanner, a well-educated man, who became distinguished in the services of his church years before the emancipation. His addresses exhibited learning and mature thought and the several works which he published entitled him to the distinction of being one of the most scholarly Negroes of his time. Among these works may be mentioned his Apology for African Methodism, The Negro's Origin, An Outline of Our History and Government; The Negro, African and American. In 1884 he was made editor of the African Biblical Review, which he so popularized that he was soon chosen bishop by his denomination.

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Bishop L. H. Holsey of the C. M. E. Church distinguished himself by a career equally as honorable. After rendering faithful service as a minister in the church he was elevated to the episcopacy at a time when the church needed the guidance of a master hand. The manner in which he addressed himself to his task and the good results which he obtained soon convinced his communicants that the selection was not a mistake. That during his day the Colored Methodists did their task so well was due in a measure, of course, to the numerous sacrifices made by other faithful churchmen of his denomination. Among these should be mentioned Bishops Elias Cottrell, Isaac Lane, R. S. Williams, N. C. Cleaves, R. A. Carter and C. H. Phillips, who still stand as the respectable and trustworthy leaders of their denomination.

Deserving of honorable mention in this connection are many distinguished Negroes who impressed the world as preachers of power. They not only built imposing edifices and pastored large congregations, but went from place to place in the State and country impressing the world with the power of God unto salvation. So generally did they ingratiate themselves into the favor of the public that they passed among the people as seers and prophets of a former period. Among these should be mentioned Dr. W. Bishop Johnson and Dr. C. M. Tanner of the District of Columbia; Dr. Harvey Johnson of Baltimore; E. K. Love and W. J. White of Georgia; Daniel Stratton, Nelson Barnett, and R. J. Perkins of West Virginia; and J. J. Worlds and L. W. Boone of North Carolina. There were also James Holmes, for years the pastor of the First Baptist Church of Richmond, Virginia; Dr. Richard Wells, the pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in the same city; Anthony Binga, a churchman of scholarly bearing, who wrote important dissertations of a theological nature while pasturing the leading Baptist Church in Manchester, Virginia; and Dr. William H. Stokes, a worker of much influence in Richmond, still speaking fearlessly in behalf of his people.

Identified with this serious group was Richard DeBaptiste, who migrated with his free parents of color from Fredericksburg, Virginia, to the Northwest after the restrictions placed upon the Negroes of this class in Virginia became intolerable. His first important work was that of teaching a public school for colored youth in the Springfield township at Mt. Pleasant, Ohio, where he later organized and pastored a Baptist Church from 1860 to 1863. He then became pastor of the Olivet Baptist Church in Chicago, a charge which he held until 1882. Serving in this capacity, he purchased two building sites at a cost of $16,000 and built two brick church edifices costing respectively $15,000 and $18,000.

His work as a minister, however, was in no sense local. He was elected corresponding secretary of the Wood River Association in 1864, was a prominent figure and officer in the Northwestern and Southern Baptist Convention organized in 1865, and was chosen president of the American Baptist Missionary Convention in Nashville, Tennessee, serving it consecutively for four years. He was thereafter elected president at intervals and remained a commanding figure in the convention because of his power and influence in the church. Manifesting further interest in the work of the denomination, he contributed to the church literature through the Chicago Conservator, the Western Herald, and the National Monitor. In fact, in his day he was not only the outstanding minister of his denomination in the West, but one of the most influential men of his race.

One of the most prominent ministers of the Reconstruction period who were not deterred from their course by politics was Rufus L. Perry. Born a slave in Nashville, Tennessee, where because of the liberal attitude of the whites toward the Negroes, he, in spite of his condition, was permitted to attend a free school for Negroes, Perry had, even before the Civil War, laid a foundation upon which he well built thereafter. He escaped from slavery in 1852 and entered upon the study of theology at the Kalamazoo (Michigan) Seminary, graduating with the class of 1861, when he was ordained as pastor of the Baptist Church at Ann Arbor, Michigan. He later served as a pastor at St. Catherine's, Ontario, and at Buffalo and Brooklyn, New York. He had then convinced the world that he was "very logical, a clear reasoner, close and active debater, deep thinker, and excellent writer," "a man of splendid natural abilities," who "goes at once to the bottom of any subject that he undertakes."

Upon the dawn of freedom he entered upon the larger duties in the service of the Negroes, doing at first missionary and educational work among the freedmen, endeavoring to evangelize and elevate the race through the system of religious education. Seeing the need for an organ through which his people and his denomination could speak to the world, he edited The Sunbeam, served as co-editor of the American Baptist, and later edited The People's Journal and The National Monitor. His articles always showed his interest in his denomination, his knowledge of general literature, and his grasp of men and things. For ten years he served as corresponding secretary of the Consolidated American Baptist Missionary Convention and was later made corresponding secretary of the American Educational Association and of the American Baptist Free Mission Society.

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Having given much attention to the study of ethnology and the classics, he doubtless impressed the world most by writing a book entitled The Cushites; or the Children of Ham as seen by the Ancient Historians and Poets. In this work he showed remarkable ability for research and extensive knowledge of the social sciences. He undertook to refute the statement that the Ethiopians and the Egyptians were not black persons, endeavored to disabuse the public mind of the impropriety of a contemptuous attitude to the Negroes because of their bondage, inasmuch as all races have at times been enslaved, and eloquently produced historical facts to convince thinking men as to the important achievements of the Negroes in their more fortunate ages in the past. He certainly made the impression of being one of the ablest men in the United States, and will long be remembered as a scholar making for the race a defense which many of his contemporaries were not prepared to appreciate.

The ministry was sufficiently attractive also to Dr. George W. Lee, who began his career in North Carolina. After having distinguished himself by efficient service in that State, he was, in 1885, called to the pastorate of the Vermont Avenue Baptist Church to succeed the Rev. J. H. Brooks, its founder, who passed away the previous year. Dr. Lee was noted especially for three significant elements of character. He was a promoter of African missions, was always disposed to help the under-man in a struggle, and made himself a patron of the youth aspiring to leadership. His pastorate was characterized by important achievements bearing on the progress of not only his congregation but that of his denomination. Noted for his originality and ability to master a situation, he soon attracted a large following and increased the membership of his church almost to 4,000. He easily became a man of national reputation, and in his travels abroad so impressed the people wherever he went that he passed as an international character.

With the possible exception of Dr. C. A. Tindley, the talented Methodist minister of Philadelphia, probably the greatest preacher of power developed during the last generation has been Dr. C. T. Walker. Coming under the influence of Christian missionaries and of the Atlanta Baptist College, he had his beginnings determined in an atmosphere of religious education. For forty years, excepting five years when he had charge of the Mt. Olivet Baptist Church, New York City, he was pastor of the Tabernacle Baptist Church of Augusta, Georgia. His church in Augusta was attended not only by thousands of his own race, but by hundreds of winter tourists, who heard him with unusual satisfaction. Among these were former President Taft, John D. Rockefeller, Gen. Rush C. Hawkins, Dr. David Gregg and Lyman B. Goff. With the support of such a large number this church undertook to supply the needs of the community, developing into an institutional enterprise with all of the activities of a social welfare agency. This expansion necessitated a new building, which he erected at a cost of $185,000.

Dr. Walker was interested in all things promoting the uplift of the race. He was the founder of the now spacious 135th Street Branch, Young Men's Christian Association, New York City, and figured largely in the establishment of a similar branch for his people in Augusta, Georgia. He was one of the prominent figures of the National Baptist Convention of the United States, being vice-president of the organization when he died, as well as vice-president of the Georgia Baptist State Convention and moderator of the Walker Association. He traveled extensively in Europe and the Holy Land and was the author of a number of books of travel and also of sermons. His main work at home and abroad, however, was that of an evangelist whose fame as such so rapidly extended that he was one of the most popular speakers in the country, attracting larger crowds than any other Negro of his time.

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