1882 Southern Baptist Convention Lament Inaction Toward African Americans For Sale

Offering detailed minutes of the sixty-second session of the state convention of the Baptist denomination in South Carolina, held with the Darlington Baptist Church, November 23-26, 1882. Original printed wrappers, stitched, 46 pp, First Edition.

With much hang wringing over the “spiritual condition and religious instruction of the colored people, who form so large a part of the population of the State.” A report advises that the “present practical difficulties...are too numerous and too serious to permit us to engage as an organization at this time in the work...Except the Levering Manual Labor Mission School among the Creek Indians, Southern Baptists are doing nothing in the way of educating the Indians and negroes.”

The convention committed itself to raising $3,000 by the next meeting and $5,000 during the Convention year that “being about the distributive share of our expenses to the work.” The committee on Education of Indians and Freedman noted that Negroes “are in contact with our best civilization, and must feel the influence of educated masses by whom they have been reared, cared for and controlled...We till the same farms, use and enjoy the benefits of the same systems of jurisprudence and education. They are much more inclined to our denomination than even the Indians are...Yet a very small percent of them are able to read the Word of God and to sign their names. In politics, they have been opposed to us, and thus we have been perhaps somewhat prejudiced to them. But twenty years of peace has brought them some education and we find a corresponding decrease in the differences between the races...We cannot afford to lose this opportunity...”

A list of members of the committee “On Suggestions as to Colored Brethren,” included J.A.W. Thomas, referred to as the “Grand old Man of Marlboro,” a Confederate veteran and a minister for many years of various churches. He was captain of a company in the 21st South Carolina regiment, Hagood’s brigade. He was wounded at Drury’s Bluff and Battery Wagner. His prepared sermons were said to have made seventy volumes of four hundred pages.

First Baptist has licensed or ordained more than 21 members into the ministry. The Macedonia Baptist Church on S. Main Street was established in 1866 after the War Between the States when many of its Black membership left First Baptist to organize their own church.

Original printed wrappers, worn and chipped, stitched. Good and a great example of post-Civil War history involving African Americans.

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