Preaching in Print

The Use of Christian Rhetoric in Black-Owned Newspapers During Reconstruction

By Damon Grant Parker

The first issue of the South Carolina Leader appeared in Charleston on October 7, 1865. A city that was once deeply enmeshed in both the antebellum slave trade and the secession movement, now had a Black-owned newspaper. The paper’s prospectus declared its commitment to the Republican led Federal government, as well as adherence to the “self-evident truth contained in the Declaration of Independence that ‘all men are created equal’.”^[1] On the second page, an anonymous editorial addressed more fully the paper’s purpose. “The abolishment of slavery in the United States…together with the variety of interests which logically follow so important a change in the status of a large proportion of the population has impressed upon us the demand for an especial effort to augment every facility for such advancement in useful knowledge as may prove beneficial in the future to all inhabitants.”^[2] While emancipation was the catalyst for publication, the editorial stated unequivocally where the newspaper stood on issues facing African-Americans in post-Civil War America. Declaring itself to be a paper for everyone by “advocating equal rights to all”, the publishers left no doubt about the paper’s allegiance by noting “we are for the Union and the Constitution, and shall defend the flag against its enemies wherever found.”^[3] This was quite a statement for a Black publication to make in the heart of the former Confederacy.

Given the strident political language of the paper’s prospectus, it is perhaps surprising that the South Carolina Leader’s first article was a treatise on the dangers of pride and the beauty of humility. The essay made frequent reference to “the Almighty Being who is the source of all life.”^[4] The second page began with a rousing call to meet the demands of the present political moment. The article was filled with Biblical imagery and constant calls for heaven’s assistance and the need to trust in the Lord. While much of the rest of the issue was consumed by the new state constitution, there was a consistent mention of God, Jesus, and church throughout the issue. The South Carolina Leader was riddled with Christian rhetoric while discussing the political events of the day.

The South Carolina Leader was not alone. Immediately following Lee’s surrender and the defeat of the Confederacy there was an explosion of Black owned newspapers in the South. Typically owned and edited by educated Black men who were either born free or freed before the war, these newspapers became the first public voice for newly freed people. These publishers acted not only as bearers of important news but also viewed themselves as teachers of the freed slaves.^[5] In the years immediately following the Civil War, Black owned newspapers used Christian rhetoric to aid in this goal. Biblical language provided publishers with both a cultural lingua franca and, at the same time, gave their new publications a recognized mantle of authority.

While it is clear that Black owned newspapers relied heavily on Christian rhetoric to support their political claims, scholars often dismissed the connection between Christianity and the politics of Reconstruction, until recently. In 1988, Eric Foner released Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877. In this opus on the post-Civil War years, Foner seeks out the deep contingencies that curtailed the progress of formerly enslaved people in America.^[6] Foner shows the complexities of the Reconstruction era, illuminating the circuitous routes taken to change a region or entire country, and the fragility of those changes. Foner attempts to center the experience of Black people and their search for economic and social justice. Foner emphasizes the evolution of concepts of race and class in a postwar environment rife with social and cultural change. These various themes interplay in unpredictable ways and what emerges is a picture of a country desiring to live up to the noble calling of the Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights, yet consistently overwhelmed by economic priorities and racial animus. Yet, while an excellent work that may be the best wide-ranging narrative of Reconstruction written to date, Foner’s coverage of religiosity is so minimal that it borders on nonexistent. Reading Foner one could almost assume that Christianity had little or no effect on the culture or politics of Reconstruction America.

Foner's failure to cover religion was not unusual at the time he wrote, when scholars interested in the role of religion in Reconstruction were exceedingly rare. However, an undercurrent of scholarly works on the connection of religion and politics from the antebellum and post-slavery eras arose in the 1970’s and blossomed into a field of its own.

In Roll, Jordan, Roll, Eugene Genovese pushed readers to see the subtle and not so subtle nuances of wealth, agriculture, American republicanism, and religion rolled up into a unique Southern culture he calls “paternalism”.^[7] While Genovese was primarily concerned with detailing the life of acquiescence and resistance of enslaved Africans, he routinely emphasized religion as essential to understanding antebellum chattel slavery. Genovese recognized the mixed message of Christianity, so often used to maintain hegemonic control, but brimming under that surface with calls for radical justice and the ending of oppression. He showed how the Bible, highly regarded by Southern whites, was filled with competing narratives on the topic of slavery. In Exodus, the Jewish nation is birthed by their extrication from slavery by Yahweh. Yet the story of the deliverance of slaves from bondage is only part of the biblical narrative, as rules for slaves and masters are found in both Jewish and Christian scripture. “Let my people go” (a rallying cry for slaves in the Antebellum South) coexists with “slaves obey your masters.”

In Slave Religion, Albert J. Raboteau delved into the growth and practice of the unique strain of Christianity found among American slaves.^[8] However, it is the second half of the book where Raboteau focusses on his thesis; the “invisible institution” of “negro Christianity” which he claims is of utmost importance to both whites and Black people in the Antebellum South. For whites, their slaves’ conversion to Christianity provided both an assuagement of guilt and a means of control. For slaves, Christianity offered a means to create community as well as a conceptual place to find solace from bondage and, at the same time, inspiration for acts of rebellion both large and small. The rise of the Black church was a crucial historical development, the fruits of which came forth during Reconstruction. Raboteau emphasizes the centrality of Christianity in Black lives, making it clear that Christianity was not a part of their lives, but near all-encompassing.

A movement inspired by the pioneering work of scholars such as Raboteau and Genovese began contemplating the interconnecting roles of Christianity, slavery, and politics, especially focused on the religion of slaves and their descendants.^[9] In The Black Church in the African-American Experience, Eric C. Lincoln and Lawrence H. Mamiya present a sociological assessment of the Black church in America.^[10] The authors rightly contend that, from its inception, Black churches were unapologetically political. The simple act of establishing independent Black churches was a blatantly political act. By the era of Reconstruction, the Black church occupied a unique position as the starting point for political organizing. “As the only stable and coherent institutional area to emerge from slavery, Black churches were not only dominant in their communities, but they also became the womb of Black culture and a number of major social institutions.”^[11]

William Montgomery uses a wide lens to succinctly study major events, people, and developments among Baptists, Methodists, and other Protestant groups where Black people made up a substantial portion or most of the denomination in the South in the Reconstruction era.^[12] In Under Their Own Vine and Fig Tree : The African-American Church in the South, 1865-1900, Montgomery provides a useful, broad narrative of the overarching history of Black churches in this timeframe. Montgomery claims Black Christians understood the stakes of the time and attempted various religious strategies to both gain ground as citizens and protect against the distinct possibility of catastrophic civic failure. Some were willing to stay under the “protection” and guidance of Southern, white-led churches, in hope of gaining ground economically and socially despite gaining little political sway. A much larger contingent fled white churches, joining denominations led by Black ministers, convinced that this was the moment to push for freedom in every aspect of life and that only Black people could truly offer understanding and protection. Sadly, while ground was gained in the initial years of Reconstruction, by the end the darkest fears of many Black theologians arrived, and churches became places of solace more than forces for extending the gains of emancipation.

In The Times Were Strange and Stirring; Methodist Preachers and the Crisis of Emancipation Reginald Hildebrand is laser-focused on how (primarily Black) Methodist preachers and missionaries in the South responded to emancipation.^[13] Hildebrand claims that Methodists fought an intramural battle during Reconstruction over the meaning of this new freedom. Most white Southerners along with the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church adopted a new paternalism that was intricately linked with antebellum social structures. In contrast, the African Methodist Episcopal Church and the African Methodist Episcopal Church Zion were Black led churches that promoted “evangelical Black nationalism.” The old Methodist Episcopal Church, based in the North, sent missionaries to the South who taught a gospel of integration along with a desire to destroy the American caste system. While Hildebrand ably manages the differences between these groups, his greatest contribution is the in-depth analysis of these denominations’ understanding of emancipation, and their attempts to secure their unique visions through ecclesiological and political means. The key being that Hildebrand theorizes that religion, over politics or culture, was the foundational way in which newly freed people engaged emancipation. Therefore, it is only by studying their religious choices and rhetoric that we can glimpse their motives and political aspirations. Freed people voted with their feet in leaving and/or joining churches, well before they could officially cast a vote. The churches they chose, and the type of “social gospel” proclaimed by those churches, reveal the aspirations, fears, and collective ideals of both ex-slaves and those freed before the war.

Despite the brilliant work done by scholars of African American Christianity, it was not until near the turn of the century that scholars fully embraced the role Christianity played in the politics of the Reconstruction era. In 1998 Daniel Stowell, in Rebuilding Zion: The Religious Reconstruction of the South, 1863-1877, presents a groundbreaking history of American Christianity during the period of Reconstruction.^[14] Stowell traces the paths of Protestant Southerners, Northerners, and freed people as they sought to interpret the outcome of the Civil War and develop ecclesial responses to a new American future.

Unsurprisingly, Northern Protestants took Union victory as a sign of God’s approval of their side and utter repudiation of the South. This did not mean that all Northern Christians believed that slavery had been wrong (although by the end of the war most did), but rather that God punished the South’s arrogance. Southerners did not view their defeat as symbolic of God’s judgment, but rather as a sign of God’s discipline. “The Lord disciplines and corrects those whom he loves,” from Hebrews, could be the scriptural mantra of Southern ecclesial apologists during Reconstruction. It was not the culture of the South or slavery that was the problem, but rather that the South did not live up to God’s calling as a chosen people. In stark contrast to both these views, Black divines and laypeople viewed the Civil War as an act of God with one purpose which was to free them from bondage. Black people viewed the Union as a tool, used by God to secure their freedom, which, they argued, was the entirety of God’s purpose for the conflict.

Stowell expertly demonstrates how these various providential views directed much of the efforts of these groups in the early years of Reconstruction. Northerners believed that the South must be punished, or at least held to some level of account before forgiveness and reunification could take place. Southern Protestants took the view that a time of introspection was needed to correct the vices that led to defeat. Following that time, the South should pursue the political goal of maintaining the uniqueness of the Southern way of life, minus slavery. Black people wholeheartedly embraced the notion that emancipation should be followed by justice which involved economics (land), civil rights, and citizenship as the next steps in what God had already accomplished. Matthew Harper and Scott Nesbit also speak to the role of providence, but primarily among freed slaves. Both show Black Protestants dealing with the millennial and providential ramifications of war and especially emancipation.^[15] Black ministers saw emancipation as THE SIGN that God was at work and the world was falling in line with God’s will. Some called for moving to Africa as a continuation of the Exodus motif, while others claimed that just as the Israelites received the land of Canaan after emancipation, so Black Americans should receive land as the next step of justice. Black ministers and politicians debated amongst themselves whether Christianity demanded the forgiveness of former slaveholders or whether God’s justice demanded that plantations be divided amongst former slaves. While Nesbit and Harper offer differing viewpoints on theological perspectives within the postwar Black Church, they both show that Black American Christians used theology to explain the political moment.

Stephen Angell and Anthony Pinn’s Social Protest Thought in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, 1862-1939 presents a literary history of political thought from the African Methodist Episcopal Church.^[16] To do so the editors use essays, articles, and editorials that appeared primarily in the A.M.E Church Review and the Christian Recorder. The demonstrate that A.M.E. political and social views were not monolithic by expressing diversity of thought on issues such as the role of women in church and society, and the necessity of emigration to Africa. What is uniform is the dire necessity of procuring civil rights and the importance of education for Black Americans. Angell and Pinn show clearly that church, religious, and theological concerns rarely were separated from political, community and social issues.

Steven Hahn’s A Nation under Our Feet Black Political Struggles in the Rural South from Slavery to the Great Migration provides a political history of Black Americans focused on grassroots movements from near the end of slavery through the great migration early in the 20^th century. His thesis is that a thread of political awareness and activity runs through this era, and that the ongoing political work of Black Americans in the Civil Rights era is rooted in this previous time. For Hahn, the organization of Black political activity is found in the kinship (both biological and fictive) that grew first in the time of slavery. African Americans drew on these relationships to quickly organize in the era of emancipation, developing political entities primarily in the form of Union Leagues and churches. “By the late antebellum period, too, these congregations evinced a quiet millennialism that fed a proto-peasant consciousness. They were, in a very real sense, the slaves’ houses of politics as well as their houses of worship.”^[17]

Both Paul Harvey and Edward Blum point to the use of Christian language to make political claims by black divines.^[18] The theological language of Black parishioners often held a double meaning, pointing to economic and political realities, and whites responded with attempts to match that type of rhetoric. However, Black people also believed secretly that if Northern whites and Southern whites found peace as Reconstruction wore on, this could be devastating for Black civil rights, therefore their rhetoric took on an urgency of the moment and sometimes pushed against the typical interpretation of Biblical stories of love and forgiveness. Black ministers preached and published often in favor of justice, equality, and the God-ordained securing of citizenship and white ministers responded by decrying the mixing of politics and piety in Black churches. Meanwhile, white ministers intensely argued for both the social order where African Americans remained at the bottom and the return of righteous rule of the South through political “redemption.”

Blum focuses more intently on the ways Black thought leaders condemned the reunification of the North and South without dealing with fundamental issues of racism and violence toward formerly enslaved people. From the writings of Frederick Douglass, Frances Harper, Ida B. Wells, and W. E. B. Du Bois, Blum shows the use of Biblical and “Christian” language as rhetorical devices intended to prod the nation to stick with Reconstruction and the furtherance of civil rights. “By religiously condemning white supremacy and lynching, these leaders sought to counteract the assertions of some contemporary whites that racial violence was sanctified by God.”^[19]

Despite this groundswell of interest in the connection between religion and politics during Reconstruction, one area of research still lacking is the connection between Black Christianity and the rise of the Black press in the era of Reconstruction. Robert Kerlin, a white minister and educator who served on the Commission on Interracial Cooperation, published a book in 1919 entitled The Voice of the Negro. Kerlin attempted to allow White Americans to hear the voices of Black people by publishing a compilation of articles from Black newspapers and periodicals. As Vilma Raskin notes in  A Reference Guide to Afro-American Publications and Editors, 1827-1946, Kerlin “insists on paying attention to the black press for several reasons: first, because ‘the Negro has a right to be heard’; second, because ‘all classes of Negro periodicals contain articles on racial strife, outcries against wrongs and persecutions’; and third, because ‘the Negro press is now more powerful than the pulpit’.”^[20] While Vaskin notes the significance of what Kerlin claimed, the connection between Black churches and the emerging Black press receives only this brief mention in Vaskin’s work.

Garland Penn, the noted journalist and lay leader in the Methodist church, published the seminal The Afro-American Press and Its Editors, in 1891. Penn already saw newspapers gaining ground on preaching in the Black community. “That the press is intrenching on the power of the pulpit is growing more evident daily. People are coming to prefer to sit by their own cozy firesides and read sermons at their leisure, to traveling in inclement weather to the house of worship; and the poor feel they are thus on a level with the rich, or, at least, are not pained by the contrast in their conditions as they often are when assembled in the house of God.”^[21] It is more than a hundred years since Penn noticed this connection, yet the interplay between Christianity and the rise of Black newspapers in the South following emancipation is mostly unexplored.

In their book A History of the Black Press, Armistead Scott Pride and Clint C. Wilson summarized succinctly the purpose of Black newspapers in the era of Reconstruction. Speaking of The Loyal Georgian, they said, “The three basic functions of the Black newspaper-unifying, educating, and guiding its clientele-were realized as keenly by the founders of the first Black paper in Georgia,”^[22]as they were by other prominent Black publications which came before. As this paper will show, Black newspaper publishers in the South took seriously their role as not simply reporters of news, but also shapers of minds. They believed that their clientele, primarily recently freed slaves, needed guidance in how to live in the new era of emancipation. In the early years of Reconstruction, Black owned newspapers sprang up quickly in the South. These papers offered instruction for the newly freed, especially on matters of political significance. Black publishers and editors of these newspapers extensively used Christian rhetoric and Biblical language to give their publications an air of authority. Using this authority, they guided and defended newly freed people in the social and political turbulence of the post-war South. Black newspapers employed Christian language to demand performative virtue and political engagement from their readers to secure civil rights.

This paper relies upon three Black-owned newspapers that began publishing soon after the end of the Civil War. Importantly, these papers come from disparate regions of the defeated Confederacy. The Black Republican appeared on the streets of New Orleans within days of Lee’s surrender.^[23] The Colored Tennessean began publishing two weeks later in Nashville. The Colored American (Augusta, Georgia), which soon changed its name to The Loyal Georgian, was first printed in December 1865.^[24] All three of the papers were the first Black newspapers published in their respective states.^[25]

The Black Republican, Colored Tennessean, and Loyal Georgian used Christian rhetoric to procure authority. Borrowing language that was both familiar and typically came from a known authority (the local minister and the Bible), Black newspapers offered guidance on everything from politics to raising children.^[26] Black editors liberally applied the language of the pulpit to everything in their newspapers including mastheads, advertisements, and editorials. By using a Christian rhetoric that was both familiar and well-respected, Black newspapers co-opted the authority and gravitas accorded to Biblical phrases and ideas.

Mastheads, perhaps the first thing that readers noticed after the newspaper’s title, articulated Biblical concepts. For example, both The Colored Tennessean and The Black Republican used a quote from Psalm 68 in their mastheads. “Ethiopia” the papers proclaimed “shall stretch forth her hands unto God.”^[27] The Black Republican went further, printing the Psalmist’s words alongside Napoleon’s quote, “The Black race is a new element of power.”^[28] Here, the editors not only claimed the mantel of Biblical authority, but used it to assert the political and civil rights of newly emancipated slaves. The masthead proudly proclaimed that Ethiopia was stretching forth its arms and that these arms had an inexorable political power.; they reached toward the ballot box and civil equality. From the masthead of these new papers, Black editors employed Biblical language to both claim an authoritative voice and to assert their readers’ political power.

Beyond mastheads, Christian rhetoric permeated Black newspapers. Sometimes this rhetoric appeared as little snippets, other times in large discourses. The October 14, 1865, edition of The Colored Tennessean showed this mix perfectly. An article on page two admonished readers to attend a series of lectures by Reverend Dr. Wood at the AME Church. The topics included “Africa and the Africans,” “The Bible and Slavery” and “The necessity of giving the colored man the elective franchise.”^[29] This type of article was common in the newspapers surveyed, as the publishers consistently drew attention to religious and political happenings at local churches, which reinforced the paper’s connection with churches and ministers.

Further down the page, an article recounted a parade and picnic conducted by the local Black Barber’s Association. The festivities included music, speeches, the marching of members of the 17^th Infantry, and a supper provided to all who attended. After mentioning some of the festivities, the anonymous writer stated, “But the best of the wine was reserved for the last of the feast.”^[30] The reporter then mentioned the dancing which took place, which they claimed was the best part of the day. This phrase about the wine was clearly a reference to Jesus’ miracle of turning water to wine at a wedding in Cana in the book of John.^[31] While the author used a Biblical phrase in a seemingly light-hearted way, the effect was to draw attention to, what he thought, was the most important part of the day. Here, Biblical language accentuates, and gives authority to the author’s belief that, of all the day’s activities, the dancing was the best.

Similarly, The Colored Tennessean used Biblical language to draw attention to a new doctor’s arrival.^[32] “The Blind Shall See and the Deaf Shall Hear” the paper proclaimed. The writer was not claiming that the new doctor could heal blindness. Rather, the article placed the doctor in the context of the healing ministry of Jesus, as the phrase was a clear allusion to the words of Jesus in the book of Matthew.^[33] Connecting a new doctor who was, as yet, unknown to the community with the image of Christ the healer, the paper helped establish the doctor’s credibility, and authority, among his new patients.

As with their endorsement of a new doctor, Black publishers used Christian rhetoric to show that they were authoritative guides as Black readers struggled to sort through who should be trusted in the new world created by emancipation. The Black Republican used the language of Christian spiritual warfare to describe former New Orleans mayor Hugh Kennedy and current Louisiana governor James Madison Wells. An editorial in the May 13, 1865, edition began with a litany of political complaints about Kennedy and Wells and their complicity with slavery. Within two paragraphs, the language shifted from politics to discussing the same situation in terms of Christian spiritual warfare. The anonymous writer described Governor Wells as “wedded to the spirit” of “the old evil.”^[34] The writer gave thanks to God for the deliverance from this evil, and the use of Major General Banks (Lincoln’s appointee to oversee Reconstruction in Louisiana) “to protect us from the new rule of rebels and copperheads.”^[35] The article ended by calling for Kennedy, Wells, and those like them to repent and live in “quiet submission to the true people whom the God of Freedom has appointed to rule.”^[36] This language clearly marked both Kennedy and Wells as untrustworthy.

In contrast, The Colored Tennessean published articles and editorials using Christian rhetoric to praise politicians. The August 12, 1865, edition primarily concerned the recent state Convention of Colored People.^[37] The multi-page article covered various aspects of the convention, and the paper focused on the need for land, the demand for suffrage, and the importance of education. These were the big three political issues of the day for newly freed people. After relaying the various thoughts of conventioneers on these matters, and editorially demanding action, the article switched to an in-depth discussion of General Fisk. Fisk, the head of the Freedman’s Bureau in Tennessee and Kentucky, attended the convention, and after listening for several days gave a speech in response. The paper provided excerpts, along with editorial comments.

Fisk commented on the desires of the convention for land, education, and suffrage. He promised to work to make these things possible. He encouraged hard work and industriousness. The paper then focused on a long piece of his speech where he explained that the new President promised to “be our Moses.”^[38] Fisk then told stories, each of which depicted him having an argument with a white person about the treatment of slaves, and now freed people. A man said that despite their utter laziness and thievery, he still treated them (Black people) with “the Christian treatment.” Fisk responded, “I told him his whole life was a lie. We have been fighting four years to destroy this system of Christianity which produces such results.”^[39]

Fisk shared that he heard sermons preached specifically against him. He told of debating with other white people about the true nature of Christianity, and the place of freed people within it. He related a tale where a woman said God would find Fisk guilty at the great judgement because he stole her property. The property in question was her slave Sam who had enlisted with Fisk.^[40] After various other remarks that the paper claimed it did not have time or space to print, Fisk concluded. The convention gave “three rousing cheers” to Fisk, then three more for his staff. The convention adopted a resolution thanking the “gallant soldier and Christian gentleman.”^[41]

Similarly, the October 7, 1865, edition of The Colored Tennessean contained extended portions of Tennessee Governor Brownlow’s speech. Both the governor’s address and the editorial comments the paper made in response were rife with Christian language. The editorial that preceded the speech claimed that “We forbear commenting at any length upon the message, preferring…to let our readers draw their own conclusions as to its merits.”^[42] However, the few editorial comments made were rich with Christian rhetoric. The paper noted that there could be no doubt the speech was “wholly and solely the production of ‘Parson’ Brownlow”, because he mentioned “the difference between the repentant prodigal and the repentant(?) rebel.”^[43] It noted that Brownlow called out northern states that urged the South to give the right to vote to freed slaves, while refusing to do so themselves. “He advises them to cast the beam out of their own eye, before presuming to judge the faults of sister states.”^[44]

While the editorial disagreed with some of Brownlow’s positions, it used Christian rhetoric to denote its approval of Brownlow and much of his message, stating “On the whole, we regard it as rather favorable to our cause than otherwise.”^[45] This mirrors what the paper did previously with Fisk. The paper bequeathed a level of trust and authority on these two white men and encouraged readers to do the same.

In the examples of General Fisk and Governor Brownlow, The Colored Tennessean employed Christian language when describing the words and actions of both men, showing them to be trustworthy. The Black Republican used Christian rhetoric to paint the opposite picture of Kennedy and Wells. The papers used Biblical allusions and Christian rhetoric to teach their readers which White leaders they could trust. The papers became an authority that could be counted on to steer Black readers through stormy seas.

With the authority they now possessed, Black newspapers employed Christian rhetoric to encourage, cajole, and even demand performative virtue from their readers. Black newspapers frequently admonished Black readers to grow and maintain Christian virtues on which their case for justice rested. In the inaugural edition of The Black Republican, an editorial on “The Duty of Colored Men in Louisiana” appeared on the second page.^[46] The editorial was a call to act in particular ways in response to this newfound freedom. The anonymous writer asked the readers to take their new privileges and “enjoy them rationally.” While emancipation was wonderful, Black people would only accomplish future goals through their “honesty, industry, temperance, religion, education, truthfulness-these will be the virtues that will make us strong.” Yet danger still lurked. “The assault has been successful, but the enemy has only fled! He is weakened, but not captured or overcome. The heel must bruise his head and crush it.”^[47] This allusion to the serpent in Genesis 3 was clearly meant to both note the danger, but also the morally superior position of Black Americans.^[48] They, like Christ, were destined to crush the evil unleashed by the serpent in the Garden of Eden. Progress was obvious, the editorialist maintained, but freed slaves could lose these gains if they did not remain vigilant both morally and politically.

On February 3, 1866, The Loyal Georgian took up the topic of the necessity of virtue in an editorial entitled “Woman as the Helpmeet of Man.”^[49] While the article led with this reference to the creation story in Genesis 2 where God made Eve Adam’s helper, the article focused on Black women living in their newfound freedom. “Your position has been suddenly changed from that of chattles to that of free, responsible beings.” However, the editorial made clear that emancipation was only the beginning for women. “You are endowed with the right to acquire knowledge, to be respectable, virtuous and chaste; the law allows it, the Lord required it.”^[50] With emancipation, mothers needed to change how they raised children. The editorial reminded women “that the children whom God has given you are to be reared, not for the slave-pen or auction block but for freedom.”^[51] The editorial begged parents to no longer whip their children, claiming this was a “relic of slavery.” Instead, when parents felt tempted to be angry with their child they should “think of your Heavenly Father, whose children we all are, and who is slow to anger and of tender mercies.”^[52]  Not only did the author appeal to Christianity as a source for parental inspiration but also made a scriptural allusion to Psalm 145 in which God is described as patient and merciful.

Sometimes, Black newspapers responded to attacks on the values, political goals, and even personhood of freed people. While the premise of these editorials was a defense of Black people against their White accusers, for their readers they functioned as encouragement to remain virtuous. A lengthy editorial in the December 30, 1865, edition of The Colored American entitled “What is a Man?” tackled the issue of how Black people should be viewed.^[53] It began with a winding perusal of the phrase “He is every inch a man”, asking what this means. After determining that every inch a man had nothing to do with looks or wealth, the editorial landed on “he is honest in all his dealings, charitable to the needy, would rather injure himself than injure others, and has peace and good will towards all men; in a word, he is Christian.”^[54] So, the person who displayed the qualities of Christ, was truly a man, even if “he were as poor as the comfortless man of Uzz” (a clear reference to Job in the Bible).^[55] The editorial then drove home its thesis. “And if character is the standard of manhood, we cannot see any just reason for withholding the titles to manhood from any one on account of his physical nature.”^[56] The writer claimed that Black people were Christian, and since this could not be denied, then neither could their rights be. After spending a paragraph on the absurdity of those who do exactly this, the editorial then made a turn as to why this mattered politically. The article mentioned that no man should deny another the political acts of serving on juries and voting. The writer built the entire political point upon the groundwork of Black people being able to become Christians and exhibit Christian virtues.

Two weeks later, another editorial in The Colored American returned to the claim of equal rights for Black Americans. The article began by stating that “If all men acted upon the great fundamental law of equality, by doing unto others as they would have others do unto them, there would be no need for governments and lawmakers.”^[57] The writer claimed that the golden rule truly enacted would make the current political wrangling unnecessary.^[58] Since that was not the case, then it must be determined who should have a voice in creating the laws. The editorial made that determination by first eliminating groups of potential voters. Foreigners, because they were not native and did not speak the language, were disqualified. Children, because “of the want of sufficient self-control and undeveloped ideas,” should not vote.^[59] The third group was women. The editorial made a religious argument for why women should be excluded. “The Head of the Woman is the man^[60], says the Scriptures, and all civilized nations have accepted that position.”^[61] In saying who should not vote, the article made a compelling case for giving the franchise to Black men, based on Christian principles.

The lead editorial in the March 3, 1866, edition of The Loyal Georgian refuted the notion that freedom destroys Black people. The article said that in a speech before the Alabama Association of Baptists, Reverend Doctor Fichener declared Black people cursed by God. He claimed freed slaves were dying in large numbers and this would only get worse because “the master is the only true friend the slave has ever had.”^[62] According to Fichener, the loss of the slave/master relationship would be the death knell for Black people. The editorial responded with a reminder of the words of the Declaration of Independence and quotes from the Founding Fathers about the moral depravity of slavery. The editorial then moved to questioning not only the veracity of all these deaths, but asking is not the United States founded on the ideal that freedom is worth the highest cost. The writer summarized by combining theology and politics by stating “the blood of the martyrs is the seed alike of the church, and of the state.”^[63] Black people showed their virtue in their willingness to take on death in the name of the ideals of Christ and the United States.

On March 10 of the same year, the lead editorial in The Loyal Georgian was a defense of the radicalism of Black politics. The writer claimed that a radical was not a “restless agitator, reckless innovator, a disturber of the peace.”^[64] In fact, “all true reform, all genuine goodness is radical, and must be so to accomplish anything truly valuable.” The author claimed Jesus was a radical because his teaching insisted “on the motive and principles which sway the conduct” instead of “merely formal and external” actions.^[65] The editorial suggested that these changes were not simply for individuals to make but “we are reminded, too, that as this is the method of individual regeneration, so is it also of social; that indeed, individual and social are here the same.” The editorial made it clear that those who scream “radical” as a pejorative do so to avoid the changes necessary for the United States to realize its’ God given calling. The conservatives of Jesus day opposed his calls for change as well. “For this reason he seemed to the formalists of his day—as he was in effect called—a radical.”^[66] By proxy, the “radical” political stance of Black people was Christ-like.

A second editorial on the same page concerned an accusation made against the local school educating Black children. In the local white paper, The Daily Transcript, an article complained about a song that Black children sang.^[67] The writer claimed that “Battle Song of Freedom” created animosity toward White people. The editorial in The Loyal Georgian responded along two distinct lines. First, they asked why would a song with lines such as “Down with the Traitor’s and up with the Stars” cause a rift?^[68]  This should only be a problem for traitors. “Freedmen’s Schools in this city are not taught to cherish feelings of animosity against the people of the South…they are, however, taught to despise Treason, and to love their country.”^[69] Second the author asked whites to examine what Black children learned in school. The writer begged, “but if the people of this city will visit their schools, they will hear them recite such passages as these;

‘Whatever you would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.’

‘Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.’

‘Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.’

‘Blesse are the peacemakers; for they shall be called the children of God.’

‘If thine enemy hunger, feed him.’

‘Bless them that curse you-pray for them that despitefully use you.’

Are such teachings as these calculated to excite hatred against the white people?”^[70]

The editorial used these quotes from Jesus, including the golden rule and the Beatitudes, to bolster the case that the school taught Christian virtues, not hate.^[71] In another article on the same page, a simple dispatch about what happened at an “exhibition of the Colored School of this city,” specifically mentioned that at the event the children recited scripture, including the Beatitudes.

In all these articles, editors defended the virtuous nature of Black people. Their desire for justice and civil rights found legitimacy at least partly because of their upstanding morality. However, this defense was not primarily for the benefit of the random white reader. Rather, Black readers could draw encouragement to sustain their moral high ground. In fact, according to Black newspapers, the political future of Black Americans relied upon Christ-like virtue being displayed.

Editors believed that while Black people made remarkable progress in emancipation, things remained precarious as the “enemy has only fled.” To “crush his head” required vigilance. The editorials commended virtues such as honesty, thriftiness, and temperance. Meanwhile, readers should avoid idleness and gossip. Writers encouraged women to parent with love and patience like their Heavenly Father. Black children should be taught the virtues of Jesus. Black readers needed to demonstrate character and virtue beyond reproach so that white people could not dismiss political demands easily.

Along with encouraging virtue, Black newspapers relied on Biblical language and Christan motifs to call for ongoing political involvement by Black readers. To do so, editorials linked the plight and progress of Black Americans with the Biblical story of the Israelites in which God liberated a chosen people after a lengthy period of oppressive slavery. The first page of The Black Republican’s first issue began with a series of dispatches pieced together to describe the events leading to Lee’s surrender. Following the final dispatch is a poem, “The Song of the Negro Boatmen.” The poem served as a joyous reaction to the news of Grant’s victory. It read in part,

“O, praise an’ tanks! De Lord he comes to set de people free: An massa tink it day ob doom, an’ we ob jubilee. De Lord dat heap de Red Sea waves He jus’ as ‘trong as den; He say de word-we las’ night slaves; To-day, de Lord’s freemen.”^[72] While the poem was a reaction to emancipation, it couched the moment in the language of the Israelite exodus found in the Bible. The writer praised God for being just as strong now as when God crushed the Egyptians to free the Israelites. The rest of the poem called for economic justice where slaves would now possess the land and harvest crops masters previously forced slaves to work.

“Ole massa on he trabbels gone; He leaf de land behind; De Lord’s breff blow him furder on, Like corn-shuck in de wind. We own de hoe, we own de plow, We own de hands dat hold; We sell de pig, we sell de cow, But never chile be sold.”^[73]

This idea of receiving land from God again followed the Biblical narrative where the Israelite slaves left Egypt and Moses brought them to the promised land.^[74] The motifs of exodus and jubilee showed that God favored the rights and justice freed slaves sought. God was on their side.

To encourage ongoing political action, editors highlighted instances where Black ecclesiastical ideas mixed with political claims. While the third issue of The Black Republican, published April 29, 1865, was dominated by news of Lincoln’s assassination, the paper used this perilous moment to connect church affiliation with political aspiration.^[75]  The first article on page two reported a meeting that took place at the State Street Methodist Episcopal Church in Mobile the previous week. At the gathering, a Reverend Taylor asked the audience if they wished to remain aligned with the Methodist Episcopal Church South or to seek unification with the Methodist Episcopal Church. When the minister asked anyone who wished to stay to please stand, “not a soul rose.”^[76] However, when queried who wished to sever the tie, “the whole audience arose.”^[77] The article went on to praise the State Street Church for their decision. “Thus is broken the slavish tie that has bound the church of God to an organization that recognized slavery as a Divine institution.”^[78] The paper described this moment as an outgrowth of the process of emancipation. “The churches are free, and the great blessings of liberty are spreading into the dark places.”^[79] As Hildebrand noted, freed people switching churches held political meaning, not just religious. The Black Republican, by describing and commenting upon this meeting, blatantly and intentionally mixed politics and religion to further the political claims of newly freed people.

Black publishers and editors also used Biblical language to cast dispersions on those who opposed freedom, justice, and citizenship for freed people, thereby encouraging Black readers to continue their efforts to procure civil rights. In the May 13, 1865, edition of The Black Republican, the paper directly confronted the way White Christians combined theological claims with politics to oppress Black people.^[80] The unsigned editorial began with a recounting of the work of God in creation. Angels, animals, fish, and finally people were all “created for the glory of God.”^[81] Yet people rebelled against the creator, and this brought “wars and rumors of wars, pestilence, sickness, sorrow, pain and death.”^[82] While this was a fairly typical summation of Christian doctrine about the creation and fall of humans, the author ended the paragraph by stating that “God created all men free and equal, and yet the Great Being suffered one class of men to get the supreme power over the other.”^[83] The rest of the editorial moves from this theological discussion to a political debate centered on the question that begins the second paragraph; “But if in the creation of God there were no distinction in men, morally or mentally, why is there any now?”^[84] The author compared the “colored man” with those who rebelled against the United States. This used the same motif of rebellion found in the summation of the fall but switched the rebellious from sinful people to those who seceded from the United States. However, the colored man “never ceased to be a quiet, peaceable and law-abiding citizen.”^[85] The writer then recounted various courageous deeds that Black soldiers undertook to remain true to the government. “He has the musket in hand and the sword by his side, and although the whole earth be converted into one field of battle, intermingled with the roaring of cannon, bursting of shells, prancing of horses, clattering of steel, and the whole ocean be one solid sheet of naval fire, the colored man is willing to go through all for the Striped and Stars under which he was freed.”^[86] The article began as a theological treatise on the fall, and ended as a rousing defense of Black efforts to make political headway.

The January 6, 1866, edition of The Colored American carried an editorial entitled “Equality. Social and Political.” The author discussed how the southern white man declared that “the Negro can never attain unto Social and Political Equality” and yet did not leave “a single stone unturned in order to prevent him from attaining unto that giddy distinction.”^[87] The writer queried if freed Black people were incapable of achieving social equality, then why did southerners fight so hard against the possibility? The editorial then simply asked if the White man was right to attempt to deny these rights. The editorialist’s answer, of course, was no. However, the writer rooted his critique of persistent white racism in terms of Christian hypocrisy. Conflating social equality with interracial marriage between black men and white women, the author wrote, “the cry is loud and long when there is a prospect . . . of a man with a dark skin leading to the altar a woman with a white skin.”^[88] And yet, white men were allowed to rape Black women with impunity. The editorialist maintained that, while white society might ignore Whites’ sexual abuse of Black women, an all-seeing God would not. “In the eyes of the public,” the writer wrote of the White rape of Black women, “he did not do it; but in the unwearied eye of the Almighty he did do it.”^[89]

The editorial mentioned a new law in Alabama that would make freedmen and freedwomen support their children together, even if they lived far apart and not as husband and wife. The reasoning for the law relied on the Christian view that the sexual act that led to that child bound the two parents. The writer noted the hypocrisy of White Christian fathers refusing to support Black Christian mothers and their babies.

The editorial then offered a solution to the hypocrisy. Former slavers must freely admit to their sins. They must repent. And “the best repentance—and we have every reason to believe, the most acceptable to High Heaven—would be an open hearted, honest acknowledgment by the father” and proper support of the child. Yet the writer doubted White Southerners would acknowledge the hypocrisy and work for change. “The question: Will they do this? Remains with them and their God.”^[90] The editor ended the article by clearly stating that until this Christian repentance occurred, White people should remain silent on the idea of social equality. Meanwhile, Black people could take heart that the pushback against their efforts provided proof that God was on their side.

In a similarly aggressive defense, an editorial in the October 14, 1865, Colored Tennessean on a recent speech given by Indiana governor Oliver Morton cuttingly attacked the state of Indiana. The writer claimed that vast numbers of Indiana residents couldn’t read or write, and therefore the governor should stop arguing for “literary attainment as a necessary qualification” for voters.^[91] The writer summarized the hypocrisy of the governor and the state of Indiana by quoting Jesus from Matthew 7, “Hoosiers had better get the beam out of their own eye.”^[92] The anonymous writer’s critique of Governor Morton’s support for literacy tests ended with a Biblical punchline that the author expected readers to understand.^[93]

As we have seen, editors and publishers connected the ongoing political struggle of Black Americans with the work of God already witnessed in emancipation. Writers consistently reminded readers of the progress made so far, showing that faithfulness, both religious and political, paid off. While the editorials surveyed here pushed back against the religious and political beliefs of White Southerners, they often did so by exclaiming the virtue, perseverance, and nobility of Black people. God was on the side of the Christian, the oppressed, and the virtuous, proclaimed Black newspapers. And we, the editors reminded their readers, are all three. In an article entitled “The Duties of the Hour” the South Carolina Leader summarized this view:

“If there ever was time, this is the hour for us to rouse ourselves and assert our manhood. Our all is at hazard, and the die of fate falls doubtful. It is vain for us to depend upon the magnanimity of our enemies. While forgiving the past and tolerating the present, let not the lessons they have taught us be forgotten. Now is the time for us, as a people, to summon every aid, human and divine-to exhibit every Christian virtue, and every Christian grace; and the wisdom of the serpent, the innocence of the dove and the intrepidity of the lion, with the blessing of Almighty God, we must be successful and shall surely be saved from destruction. So shall we enjoy the benefits of perfect freedom; for freedom abridged is but another name for slavery; and much worth living for is lost when a people is politically enslaved.”^[94]

Black editors used Christian rhetoric to remind their readers repeatedly of the agency they possessed. Black people alone possessed the ability and duty to educate themselves and their children. Black people should use their newfound freedom to grow in virtue as well as knowledge. Their political future lay in their own hands, guided by God. As the South Carolina Leader admonished, “Be not lulled into security by the vain hope of receiving the protection of heaven without doing our duty as becomes men. This were to mock the Deity. Virtue, unanimity, and firmness will insure success; for with God and justice on our side…tyranny, spiritual or temporal, shall never reign triumphant in a land inhabited by Americans.”^[95]

Following Lee’s surrender, Black owned newspapers quickly began publishing across the South. These papers not only shared the news of the day but attempted to lead and teach their recently emancipated readers. Black publishers and editors of these newspapers extensively used Christian rhetoric and Biblical language to give their publications an air of authority. Using this authority, they guided and defended newly freed people in the social and political turbulence of the post-war South. Black newspapers employed Christian language to demand performative virtue and political engagement from their readers to secure civil rights.

 

[1] National Endowment for the Humanities, “South Carolina Leader. [Volume] (Charleston, S.C.) 1865-18??, October 07, 1865, Image 1,” Chroniclingamerica.loc.gov, October 7, 1865, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83025783/1865-10-07/ed-1/seq-1/.

[2] “South Carolina Leader”, Image 2.

[3] Ibid.

[4] “South Carolina Leader”, Image 1.

[5] For a fuller look at the development of the Black press in America see Frankie Hutton, The Early Black Press in America, 1820s to 1860s. (Westport, Conn. ; London: Greenwood Press, 1993), Penelope L Bullock, The Afro-American Periodical Press (1838-1909) (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, Cop, 1981), and Armistead Scott Pride and Clint C. Wilson, A History of the Black Press (Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press, 1997).

[6]Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877 (New York: Harper & Row, 1988).

[7] Eugene D Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made (Vintage Books, 1972).

[8] Albert J Raboteau, Slave Religion. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978).

[9] For a quick overview of the topic see Paul Harvey, Through the Storm, through the Night: A History of African American Christianity (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2013). Harvey’s book, intended for use at the undergraduate level, ends with an excellent bibliographic essay highlighting much of the relevant recent scholarship in the arena of African American Christianity.

[10] C Eric Lincoln and Lawrence H Mamiya, The Black Church in the African-American Experience (Durham: Duke University Press, 1990).

[11] C Eric Lincoln and Lawrence H Mamiya, The Black Church in the African-American Experience (Durham: Duke University Press, 1990), 17.

[12] William E Montgomery, Under Their Own Vine and Fig Tree: The African-American Church in the South, 1865-1900 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1993).

[13] Reginald F Hildebrand, The Times Were Strange and Stirring Methodist Preachers and the Crisis of Emancipation (Duke University Press, 1995).

[14] Daniel W Stowell, Rebuilding Zion (Oxford University Press, 1998).

[15] Scott Nesbit, “A Sharecropper’s Millennium: Land and the Perils of Forgiveness in Post–Civil War South Carolina,” and Matthew Harper, “Emancipation and African American Millennialism,” in Apocalypse and the Millennium in the American Civil War Era, ed. Ben Wright and Zachary W. Dresser (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2013), 175–93, 154–74.

[16] Stephen Ward Angell and Anthony B Pinn, Social Protest Thought in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, 1862-1939 (Knoxville (Tenn.): University of Tennessee Press, 2000).

[17] Steven Hahn, A Nation under Our Feet Black Political Struggles in the Rural South from Slavery to the Great Migration (Cambridge Harvard University Press, 2005), 44.

[18] Paul Harvey, “God and Negroes and Jesus and Sin and Salvation: Racism, Racial Interchange, and Interracialism in Southern Religious History,” in Religion in the American South: Protestants and Others in History and Culture, ed. Beth Barton Schweiger and Donald G. Mathews (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004), 283–329 and Edward J. Blum, “O God of a Godless Land: Northern African American Challenges to White Christian Nationhood, 1865-1906,” in Vale of Tears: New Essays on Religion and Reconstruction, ed. Edward J. Blum and W. Scott Poole (Macon, Ga: Mercer University Press, 2005), 93–111.

[19] Edward J. Blum, “O God of a Godless Land: Northern African American Challenges to White Christian Nationhood, 1865-1906,” in Vale of Tears: New Essays on Religion and Reconstruction. (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 2005), 104.

[20] Vilma Raskin Potter, A Reference Guide to Afro-American Publications and Editors, 1827-1946 (Wiley-Blackwell, 1993), 22.

[21] I. Garland Penn, The Afro-American Press and Its Editors, with Contributions by Frederick Douglass [and Others]. (Springfield, Mass. Willey, 1891), 487

[22] Armistead Scott Pride and Clint C Wilson, A History of the Black Press (Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press, 1997), 78.

[23] “The Black Republican Newspaper Association-more a committee of Republicans than an organization of newspaper publishers-established The Black Republican, a four-page, seven-column weekly. The editor, Dr. S. W. Rogers, had two assistants, C.C. Antoine and A. Jordan. Most of the staff members, including the editor, had been slaves.” Armistead Scott Pride and Clint C Wilson, A History of the Black Press (Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press, 1997), 75.

[24] I. Garland Penn, in describing the founding of The Loyal Georgian said “It is designed to be a vehicle for the diffusion of Religious, Political and General Intelligence. It will be devoted to the promotion of harmony and goodwill between the whites and colored people of the South, and untiring in its advocacy of Industry and Education among all classes; but particularly the class most in need of our agency. It will steadfastly oppose all forms of vice that prey upon society and give that counsel that tends to virtue, peace, prosperity, and happiness.” I Garland Penn, The Afro-American Press and Its Editors, with Contributions by Frederick Douglass [and Others]. (Springfield, Mass. Willey, 1891), 101.

[25] Pride and Wilson, A History of the Black Press.

[26] Freed people trusted ministers not only religiously, but in the political arena as well. Eric Foner points out that Black constituents elected more ministers to public office during Reconstruction than any other occupation besides farmer, which was meaningful in an agriculturally dominated era. Eric Foner, Freedom’s Lawmakers (Oxford University Press, USA, 1993).

[27] The use of this quotation from Psalm 68:31 by both The Black Republican and The Colored Tennessean in their masthead was noteworthy. Not only was this a use of scripture as the opening statement of each paper, but this particular Biblical quote was used widely by Black ministers, theologians, educators, and politicians including Richard Allen, W.E.B. DuBois, Marcus Garvey, and Ralph Ellison. See Roy Kay, The Ethiopian Prophecy in Black American Letters (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2011).

[28] National Endowment for the Humanities, “The Black Republican. [Volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1865-186?, April 15, 1865, Image 1,” Chroniclingamerica.loc.gov, April 15, 1865, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83016563/1865-04-15/ed-1/seq-1/.

[29] National Endowment for the Humanities, “The Colored Tennessean. [Volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1865-1866, October 14, 1865, Image 2,” Chroniclingamerica.loc.gov, October 14, 1865, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83025745/1865-10-14/ed-1/seq-2/.

[30] Ibid.

[31] John 2:1-12.

[32] National Endowment for the Humanities, “The Colored Tennessean. [Volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1865-1866, October 14, 1865, Image 3,” Chroniclingamerica.loc.gov, October 14, 1865, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83025745/1865-10-14/ed-1/seq-3/.

[33] Matthew 11:1-6. In the story, John the Baptist (who is in prison) sent a question to Jesus, “Are you the one?” Jesus answered by declaring “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor. Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me.”

[34] National Endowment for the Humanities, “The Black Republican. [Volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1865-186?, May 13, 1865, Image 3,” Chroniclingamerica.loc.gov, May 13, 1865, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83016563/1865-05-13/ed-1/seq-3/.

[35] Ibid.

[36] Ibid.

[37]National Endowment for the Humanities, “The Colored Tennessean. [Volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1865-1866, August 12, 1865, Image 1,” Chroniclingamerica.loc.gov, August 12, 1865, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83025745/1865-08-12/ed-1/seq-1/.

[38] National Endowment for the Humanities, “The Colored Tennessean. [Volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1865-1866, August 12, 1865, Image 4,” Chroniclingamerica.loc.gov, August 12, 1865, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83025745/1865-08-12/ed-1/seq-4/.

[39] Ibid.

[40] Ibid.

[41] Ibid.

[42] National Endowment for the Humanities, “The Colored Tennessean. [Volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1865-1866, October 07, 1865, Image 2,” Chroniclingamerica.loc.gov, October 7, 1865, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83025745/1865-10-07/ed-1/seq-2/.

[43] Ibid.

[44] Ibid. The repentant prodigal comes from the story of the prodigal son in Luke 15:11-32. The” beam out of their own eye” is from Matthew 7:3-5 where Jesus says, “And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye. The Holy Bible: King James Version. (New York: American Bible Society, 1984).

[45] Ibid.

[46] National Endowment for the Humanities, “The Black Republican. [Volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1865-186?, April 15, 1865, Image 2,” Chroniclingamerica.loc.gov, April 15, 1865, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83016563/1865-04-15/ed-1/seq-2/.

[47] Ibid.

[48] Genesis 3 narrates the story of Adam and Eve eating the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. God then curses them and kicks them out of the garden. Not only are Adam and Eve cursed, but the serpent who tempted Eve is cursed. “So the Lord God said to the serpent,

“Because you have done this,

“Cursed are you above all livestock
    and all wild animals!
You will crawl on your belly
    and you will eat dust
    all the days of your life.
 And I will put enmity
    between you and the woman,
    and between your offspring and hers;
he will crush your head,
    and you will strike his heel.”

The Holy Bible: New International Version the New Testament. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1978).

[49] National Endowment for the Humanities, “The Loyal Georgian. [Volume] (Augusta, Ga.) 1866-1867, February 03, 1866, Image 2,” Chroniclingamerica.loc.gov, February 3, 1866, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn82016224/1866-02-03/ed-1/seq-2/.

[50] Ibid.

[51] Ibid.

[52] Ibid.

[53] National Endowment for the Humanities, “The Colored American. [Volume] (Augusta, Ga.) 1865-1866, December 30, 1865, Image 2,” Chroniclingamerica.loc.gov, December 30, 1865, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn82014351/1865-12-30/ed-1/seq-2/.

[54] Ibid.

[55] Ibid. According to the book of Job, Job lived in the land of Uz, and was extremely wealthy and righteous. In a series of tragic events, Job lost all his wealth, his children, and his health. Friends came to visit with him but were unable to bring him comfort.

[56] Ibid.

[57] National Endowment for the Humanities, “The Colored American. [Volume] (Augusta, Ga.) 1865-1866, January 13, 1866, Image 2,” Chroniclingamerica.loc.gov, January 13, 1866, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn82014351/1866-01-13/ed-1/seq-2/.

[58] “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.” Matthew 7:12. The Holy Bible: New International Version the New Testament. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1978).

[59] “The Colored American. [Volume] (Augusta, Ga.) 1865-1866, January 13, 1866, Image 2.”

[60] 1 Corinthians 11.

[61] “The Colored American. [Volume] (Augusta, Ga.) 1865-1866, January 13, 1866, Image 2.”

[62]National Endowment for the Humanities, “The Loyal Georgian. [Volume] (Augusta, Ga.) 1866-1867, March 03, 1866, Image 2,” Chroniclingamerica.loc.gov, March 3, 1866, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn82016224/1866-03-03/ed-1/seq-2/.

[63] Ibid.

[64]National Endowment for the Humanities, “The Loyal Georgian. [Volume] (Augusta, Ga.) 1866-1867, March 10, 1866, Image 2,” Chroniclingamerica.loc.gov, March 10, 1866, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn82016224/1866-03-10/ed-1/seq-2/.

[65] Ibid.

[66] Ibid.

[67] The paper referred to is The Daily Transcript, published in Augusta from 1865-1866.

[68] National Endowment for the Humanities, “The Loyal Georgian. [Volume] (Augusta, Ga.) 1866-1867, March 10, 1866, Image 2,” Chroniclingamerica.loc.gov, March 10, 1866, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn82016224/1866-03-10/ed-1/seq-2/.

[69] Ibid.

[70] Ibid.

[71] Matthew 5:3-12. Matthew 7:12.

[72] National Endowment for the Humanities, “The Black Republican. [Volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1865-186?, April 15, 1865, Image 1,” Chroniclingamerica.loc.gov, April 15, 1865, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83016563/1865-04-15/ed-1/seq-1/.

[73] Ibid.

[74] The poem relies on two motifs from the Old Testament that were quite common among Black ministers: exodus and jubilee. The exodus of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt proved a powerful narrative of hope before emancipation and a proclamation of God’s fulfillment of His goodness after. Jubilee is a lesser-known Biblical idea from Leviticus where Yahweh commanded the Israelites to celebrate a year of Jubilee every fifty years. In the year of Jubilee, rich people returned land to its previous owners, masters released indentured servants and slaves, and poor people received back possessions sold to avoid poverty. Jubilee represented economic justice for the poor, enslaved, and oppressed. These two motifs consistently found their way into Black-owned newspapers, and the familiarity of the audience with them meant they required no explanation. For a better understanding of the theological motifs of exodus and jubilee see Brevard S Childs, The Book of Exodus : A Critical, Theological Commentary (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004), John I Durham, Exodus, Volume 3 (Zondervan Academic, 2018), George V Pixley, On Exodus (Orbis Books, 1987), John Hartley, Leviticus, Volume 4 (Zondervan Academic, 2018), Christian T Collins, Jesus, Jubilee, and the Politics of God’s Reign (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2023).

[75] Interestingly, the first article of the edition was an excerpt from a recent speech by Frederick Douglass. While the quoted text from Douglass contains no Christian rhetoric, it does function as another instance of the publishers attempting to instruct their readers. The excerpted portion of the speech lauded industriousness and education. Douglass claimed that to be the equal of whites, freed slaves must now use their minds instead of their bodies. In fact, Douglass lambasted anyone who thought differently by exclaiming “Let us resolve to point the finger of scorn at every colored man who refuses to send his children to school.” National Endowment for the Humanities, “The Black Republican. [Volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1865-186?, April 29, 1865, Image 1,” Chroniclingamerica.loc.gov, April 29, 1865, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83016563/1865-04-29/ed-1/seq-1/.

[76] National Endowment for the Humanities, “The Black Republican. [Volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1865-186?, April 29, 1865, Image 2,” Chroniclingamerica.loc.gov, April 29, 1865, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83016563/1865-04-29/ed-1/seq-2/.

[77] Ibid.

[78] Ibid.

[79] Ibid.

[80] National Endowment for the Humanities, “The Black Republican. [Volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1865-186?, May 13, 1865, Image 2,” Chroniclingamerica.loc.gov, May 13, 1865, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83016563/1865-05-13/ed-1/seq-2/.

[81] Ibid. The notion of being “created for the glory of God” comes from Isaih 43, as part of a poem predicting God redeeming the Israelites from the nations that subdue them.

[82] Ibid. “Wars and rumors of wars” comes from the teachings of Jesus about the coming destruction of Jerusalem in Matthew 24.

[83] Ibid.

[84] Ibid.

[85] Ibid.

[86] Ibid.

[87] National Endowment for the Humanities, “The Colored American. [Volume] (Augusta, Ga.) 1865-1866, January 06, 1866, Image 2,” Chroniclingamerica.loc.gov, January 6, 1866, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn82014351/1866-01-06/ed-1/seq-2/.

[88] Ibid.

[89] Ibid.

[90] Ibid.

[91] National Endowment for the Humanities, “The Colored Tennessean. [Volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1865-1866, October 14, 1865, Image 2,” Chroniclingamerica.loc.gov, October 14, 1865, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83025745/1865-10-14/ed-1/seq-2/.

[92] Ibid.

[93] Matthew 7:3-5

[94]National Endowment for the Humanities, “South Carolina Leader. [Volume] (Charleston, S.C.) 1865-18??, October 07, 1865, Image 2,” Chroniclingamerica.loc.gov, October 7, 1865, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83025783/1865-10-07/ed-1/seq-2/.

[95] Ibid.