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1865–1877
A Social Revolution
leaders railed against folk religion as an ignorant and idolatrous relic of slavery. Still, 329
these beliefs and practices were common, especially among rural people, but even in
towns and cities and among Christians.
In black urban neighborhoods, church networks and resources helped fuel insti-
tutional growth, including hospitals, clinics, asylums for orphans and the mentally
ill, mutual aid societies, lodges, and unions. Churches led black community efforts
to deal with the epidemics of cholera, smallpox, and yellow fever that swept through
the South after the war, especially as blacks who had never traveled much before
became more exposed to lethal diseases. With help from the Medical Division of the
Freedmen’s Bureau, former wartime army hospitals were converted into hospitals to
serve African Americans. In Washington, D.C., Freedmen’s Hospital was established
during the war. In New Orleans and Richmond, Virginia, the existing black hospitals
expanded. By the late 1860s, segregated asylums and hospitals served black communi-
ties in a number of southern cities.
In addition, black churches, northern white churches, and the American
Missionary Association (AMA) founded black grade schools and high schools during
this period. They also established colleges and teacher training institutes, known as
normal schools. These historically black colleges and universities reflected their found-
ers’ goals, giving great emphasis to religious instruction, Christian morality, and hard
work, as well as academic and vocational training. (See Appendix: Historically Black
Colleges and Universities, 1865–Present.)
Through their networks and resources, black churches generated a range of eco-
nomic organizations. Each church operated as an economic enterprise, undertaking
fundraising, buying and maintaining buildings and real estate, promoting businesses,
and supporting social programs for the needy. Mutual aid societies rooted in churches
evolved into black insurance companies and banks in the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries. Church social circles provided ready consumer bases for black
products and services. Some churches sold Christian products, such as Bibles and reli-
gious pamphlets and lithographs. Black ministers served on the boards of black com-
panies. Churches sponsored business expositions featuring products such as furniture,
medicines, and handicrafts to showcase African Americans’ economic progress since
emancipation.
The church was also the hub of black political life. At all levels — from within the
church to local, state, and national politics — the church functioned as the key forum
for political debate and action. It was vital to black political education and activism,
including participation in black community politics and the white-dominated polit-
ical mainstream. Among black ministers’ many roles, that of political leader proved
central. Preacher-politicians saw themselves both as faithful servants to their congre-
gations and as representatives of their people to white politicians. They believed that
their Christian-based leadership would improve the morality of both the political sys-
tem and secular society. In the 1870s, the Reverend James Poindexter of the Second
Baptist Church in Columbus, Ohio, explained that “all the help the preachers and all

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