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1865–1877
A Social Revolution
Most newly freed families had to meet their household needs with very limited 327
resources, and poverty rendered them fragile. Every person had to work. Immediately
after emancipation, large numbers of freedwomen withdrew from field labor and
domestic service to manage their own households, but most were soon forced to
work outside the home for wages. Although traditional notions of women’s and men’s
roles prevailed — woman as caretaker and homemaker; man as breadwinner and
protector — black men by themselves rarely earned enough to support their families.
One consequence was that black women who were contributing to the family income
also participated more fully in family decision making. In addition, black women felt
freer to leave dysfunctional relationships and to divorce or simply live apart from
their husbands. But female-headed households were almost always poorer than dual-
headed households. Moreover, as legal protectors and guarantors of their wives and
children, freedmen exercised the rights of contract and child custody. Men typically
made and signed labor contracts on behalf of their wives, and they held the upper
hand in child custody disputes.

Church and Community
The explosive growth of independent black churches in the South during this period
reflects freedpeople’s desire for dignity, autonomy, and self-expression as well as
independent and affirmative religious lives. With emancipation, they rejected white
Christianity and exited white churches by the thousands to form congregations of their
own. As Matthew Gilbert, a Tennessee Baptist minister, noted, “The emancipation of
the colored people made the colored churches and ministry a necessity, both by vir-
tue of the prejudice existing against us and of our essential manhood before the laws
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of the land.” Often with the assistance of missionaries from churches in the North,
the major black denominations — Baptist, African Methodist Episcopal (AME), and
African Methodist Episcopal Zion (AME Zion) — became established in the South.
By 1880, nationwide there were more than 500,000 people in the Baptist Church,
400,000 in the AME Church, and 250,000 in the AME Zion Church. By 1890, more
than half of those belonging to independent black churches were Baptists. 12
Next to the family, the black church provided the most important institutional
support in the transition from slavery to freedom. Joining a church was an act of phys-
ical and spiritual emancipation, and black churches united black communities. They
also empowered blacks because they operated outside white control. In addition,
black churches anchored collective black identification — a sense of peoplehood, of
nationhood. Men dominated church leadership, but women constituted most of the
members and regular attendees and did most of what was called church work. Women
gave and raised money, taught Sunday school, ran women’s auxiliaries, welcomed vis-
itors, and led social welfare programs for the needy, sick, and elderly. They were also
prominent in domestic and foreign missionary activities. One grateful minister consis-
tently offered “great praise” to the church sisters for all their hard work. 13

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