Clip shot by an attendee at one of my related lectures at the Manassas Museum

In keeping with this month’s theme I am working on a post about segregation via separate (side) entrances in our area’s most historic churches. This includes Massaponnax Baptist Church, Old Salem Church and Zion United Methodist Church. I have always been fascinated with the hypocrisy of the early ‘integrated congregations’ that worshipped ‘together’ prior to the Civil War and how racism was often masked as paternalism. The fact that these three churches’ actual architecture was designed in such a way to maintain the social order of the period is quite telling.

In my studies over the years into the role of religion during the Civil War, I have found that many of my fellow Christians were among the most prejudice. I am hoping to include some recollections from both white and black members of the congregation (whenever possible) along with excerpts from my book Historical Churches of Fredericksburg and my lecture titled Houses of the Holy: A study in pre-war race relations at Fredericksburg's landmark churches. Stay tuned…

Located at 801 Sophia Street, Shiloh Baptist Church was sold to its black congregation by the resident white church for a sum of $500. Shortly after gaining its independence, the African American congregation flourished, building a large membership of both free and slave members. After the Emancipation Proclamation took effect, the congregation appointed its first black pastor, Reverend George Dixon. When the Civil War ended, members who had fled north to escape the fighting returned and the church once again thrived. Today there are two Shiloh Baptist Churches in the Fredericksburg area (Old Site and New Site). During the Civil War, the original Shiloh Church served as a hospital for Union soldiers.

As presented in the previous chapter, Shiloh Baptist Church (Old Site) evolved from the integrated Fredericksburg Baptist Church. The original congregation included both white and black members, and by the 1840s over 75 percent of the eight-hundred-member assembly was black. Not surprisingly, the archived transcripts recalling the division of the church and the sale of its building to the African American membership differ greatly in tone between the two races. This is completely understandable, given the time in American history when they were recorded. Although both churches share a historical bond today, this was not always the case during the racial strife of the pre–civil rights period.

In the late 1800s, the white congregation of Fredericksburg Baptist Church acknowledged the racial tensions leading up to the separation, but presented the split as a magnanimous gesture on their part. The African American records, on the other hand, negatively recall the terms of dismissal and financial debates that occurred over the property. Therefore, as the white members’ point of view has been outlined in the previous section, the following recollections present the other side of the story, as written by the black congregation.

After growing in numbers for several decades, the Baptists recognized an escalating problem with the space limitations in the old building used as the first Baptist Meeting House. Both white and black members initiated a pledge drive to gain the finances that were necessary to construct a much larger sanctuary. Despite their limited resources when compared to their white counterparts, the African American population subscribed the impressive amount of $1,100 in financial support. As written in the congregation’s minutes dated September 28, 1855, the church’s “colored brethren and sisters” pledged the sum to assist in the “construction of a new building.”

At the time it is said that there were at least 625 African American members at Fredericksburg Baptist Church. This included John Washington, who escaped the bonds of slavery after crossing the Rappahannock River and entering the Union army’s encampment, which was located at Falmouth. He then proceeded to Washington, D.C., where many other members of his church had fled and established a new Shiloh Baptist Church in the nation’s capital. After the war, he wrote and published a fascinating collection of memoirs detailing his escape in 1862.

Despite worshiping together for years, tensions between the two races heightened in 1854, nearly ten years before the War Between the States would erupt over states’ rights and the institution of slavery. It was at this time that the groups began to worship separately, with the black members meeting on Sunday afternoons as opposed to the mornings. Eventually the idea of building a newer church “in town” for the white congregational members and leaving the riverside building in the hands of the black members was approved. In September of 1855, the church secretary recorded, “It has always been our intention to give up our old house of worship to the colored portion of our church.” This decision came on the heels of the pledge drive in which the African Americans had vowed to provide a large gift.

A feud ignited over what financial obligations were to be fulfilled. The white committee members insisted that no property would be officially transferred until the beneficiaries fulfilled their “moral obligation” to make good on all pledges up to the proposed sum of $1,100. After much discussion, a compromise of $500 ($400, according to Fredericksburg Baptist Church accounts) was reached between the two parties. According to the church minutes taken on February 3, 1856:

Resolved, that we shall still consider our coloured brethren as part of our church and feel it to be our duty as well as pleasure to aid them in any way we can to build up the cause  of our divine master and to secure to them the peaceable occupancy of the house they now worship, with all the privileges as a branch of our church which the laws of our state extend to them.

As was often the case during this period, the Caucasian majority frequently took a paternalistic approach to its African American neighbors who were less rooted in recognition of equality and more rooted in the moral obligation to assist those souls held in bondage. Additionally, whites often perceived blacks, especially slaves, to be both ignorant and living in a state of irreligion. In their minds, even slave owners were answering the call to “go forth and make disciples of all nations,” which included those who they ironically deprived of the ability to read and write. In essence, the denial of an education in any form prevented blacks from getting out from under the intellectual shadow of the white population.

Racism obviously posed a conflict of conscience for many practicing Christians, as the very same people offering spiritual nurturing to their “coloured brethren” were often slave owners themselves. This represented a paradoxical relationship that existed between devout believers and their servants. The majority of whites appeared to have been benevolent at best about racial equality. Many citizens, even those who opposed the institution of slavery, still did not consider the black population to be equal. To some, the path to freedom for blacks meant colonization. To others, slavery had been ordained by their personal interpretations of Biblical scripture.

However, white supremacy was not embraced by all of Fredericksburg’s citizens. A local Presbyterian woman named Mary B.M. Blackford recorded the hypocrisy that she witnessed during worship as well as one minister’s efforts to seek colonization for freed blacks. She wrote:

[Slave traders] have been using the town jail for their purpose, though it is expressly contrary to law, there being no one possessed of moral courage enough to go forward to have this abuse corrected. The town jail faces the Presbyterian Church and I have sat there during the preaching and looked out at the innocent prisoners peeping through the iron bars, and have thought that they were kept there for the crime of designing to be free and to return to those God commanded them to protect and care for. The words would occur to me as I looked around on the worshippers in the Church, “Is not this the fast that I have chosen, to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke.” At the time when my heart was weighed down by watching each day the progress made in building the brick wall that was around the negro jail spoken of above where guiltless prisoners were to be immured, and I looked around in vain for a remedy. (My dear husband did all he could do to stop it.) I was called to the door to see a plain looking country gentleman who wished to see Mr. Blackford on business. I told him Mr. B. would soon be at home and asked him to be seated. On entering into conversation with him, I discovered he had been directed by the good and holy man Father Kobler (a Methodist Preacher) to get advice from my husband as to the steps necessary to be taken to procure a passage to Liberia for a young woman, the only Slave he possessed. He told that he was about to remove with his family to Illinois, and he wished to give her her freedom and every advantage. He could have gotten, he told me, four hundred dollars for her in the neighborhood. This act of disinterestedness cheered me; it was the green spot in the moral desert I had been wandering through. I thank God for showing me just then that there were some who felt for the oppressed; it cheered and refreshed my spirits, and I can better bear to witness the progress of the jail, though I trust I shall never be hardened to such sights. The young woman who was liberated by the gentleman…was sent to town to the care of the Female Colonization Society, and was sent to Liberia by them under the protection of some missionaries who were going to that place. Along with her we sent another freed girl manumitted by Mr. Morton.*

Read entire chapter (*copy continues on page 6 of pdf)

Protesters against the Texas schoolbook debacle in which ultra-conservatives
approved making radical changes to state education history curriculum.

I am seriously considering writing a piece titled The More History You Learn, the More Liberal You're Likely to Become. As one progressive historian put it, the 'far right' may win some battles, but they always have, and always will, lose the war of ideas.

Why is this? Well...

This weekend I will be conducting my first battlefield tour of the 2012 season. The last AABT trip that I led was back in November, so I’ve been itching to get back out on our local hallowed grounds. This time I have the pleasure of guiding a very good friend of mine who is working on his PhD in History at Carnegie Mellon University. As he is not wheelchair-bound, there won’t be any limitations on where we can go. Therefore we will be doing an expanded version of my Fredericksburg Battlefield tour. Although the Civil War is not his specialty, he is slated to participate on several CW-related academic panels this year. My goal is to present the local events of December 1862 and the repercussions that followed.

It’s always a privilege to have an opportunity to work with professional historians and teachers as they truly have an elevated way of analyzing history and exploring how it relates to other topics. They also don’t get skewed by allowing their own personal views to dictate their conclusions (unlike the good ol’ heritage crowd). Their ability to interpret history in a sociological and philosophical manner is a learned skill that few of us public historians have. I certainly don’t. Most teaching historians like my friend are required to read close to a hundred books a year in order to teach their students. Add to that their own research and publishing projects and that equates to a helluva workload. Frankly, I have a newfound respect for these folks. With that said I hope to learn more from my friend than he will from me! (Recap of our experience to come…)

There is perhaps no other document in the history of American politics that is more hotly contested than the U.S. Constitution. For centuries historians and pundits alike have argued over the Founder’s intent and some have even questioned the Constitution’s validity in modern society.

Each election season candidates on both sides of the political spectrum refer to the Constitution in support of their platforms while the voting public, whose vast majority has never even read the document, are led to believe that it contains a timeless wisdom that is essential to maintaining a functioning democratic republic. Unfortunately, the term ‘dysfunctional’ seems more appropriate when describing American politics today.

Some politicians, mainly those on ‘the right,’ claim that in order for the nation to return to any level of prominence, an unwavering allegiance to the guiding principles of the Constitution is absolutely necessary. The Tea Party movement in particular maintains this stance. Over on ‘the left’ there is a more liberal, progressive portion who does not accept the inherent premise that all of the country’s problems can be remedied by simply returning to political philosophies from 1787. They call for reform in order to meet the ever-changing demands of today’s world. Perhaps the answer lies somewhere in between?

There is a trend among those who have studied both the origins of the U.S. Constitution and the resulting course of American history which proposes that the system put in place by the Founders was never really as ingenious as we were led to believe, nor was it an unquestionable and infallible way of governance. In other words, American politics has been dysfunctional from the drafting of the Constitution. Some critics cite the insincerity of the Founder's pledge for independence, while others contend that the two-party system's failures of today can be traced back to the limitations that were established by our very first government.

In retrospect the Constitution's preamble of "We the People" does seems quite absurd given the time period it was written when women and minorities had no civil rights whatsoever. We tend to forget that America was originally established by wealthy white men, for wealthy white men. They should be rightfully credited for gaining independence for the country, but not for its citizens. Therefore, the liberties and freedoms that we enjoy today came as the result of great struggles and sacrifices that were made by those who came after the Founders.

Progressive historians are not the only ones who have taken a more critical stance on the origins of the U.S. Constitution. There have been some highly-respected political figures who were gutsy enough to acknowledge the Constitution’s flaws and antiquated principles. One of the most noteworthy of these was Thurgood Marshall who gave a highly controversial speech that was critical of the Founding Fathers and the U.S. Constitution. Marshall was one of the few voices pointing out that the original Constitution required numerous amendments and came to a crisis that required a Civil War to solve.

In an era of obedient flag waving and patriotic rhetoric, Marshall’s comments were both disruptive and thought-provoking. They still are today. On May 6, 1987, Marshall presented his bicentennial speech at The Annual Seminar of the San Francisco Patent and Trademark Law Association. (Read entire speech here). Two main points in that speech outlined the popular misconceptions over the document:

Like many anniversary celebrations, the plan for 1987 takes particular events and holds them up as the source of all the very best that has followed. Patriotic feelings will surely swell, prompting proud proclamations of the wisdom, foresight, and sense of justice shared by the Framers and reflected in a written document now yellowed with age. This is unfortunate, not the patriotism itself, but the tendency for the celebration to oversimplify, and overlook the many other events that have been instrumental to our achievements as a nation. The focus of this celebration invites a complacent belief that the vision of those who debated and compromised in Philadelphia yielded the “more perfect Union” it is said we now enjoy.

I cannot accept this invitation, for I do not believe that the meaning of the Constitution was forever “fixed” at the Philadelphia Convention. Nor do I find the wisdom, foresight, and sense of justice exhibited by the Framers particularly profound. To the contrary, the government they devised was defective from the start, requiring several amendments, a civil war, and momentous social transformation to attain the system of constitutional government, and its respect for the individual freedoms and human rights, we hold as fundamental today. When contemporary Americans cite “The Constitution,” they invoke a concept that is vastly different from what the Framers barely began to construct two centuries ago…

…The men who gathered in Philadelphia in 1787 could not have envisioned these changes. They could not have imagined, nor would they have accepted, that the document they were drafting would one day be construed by a Supreme Court to which had been appointed a woman and the descendent of an African slave. We the People” no longer enslave, but the credit does not belong to the Framers. It belongs to those who refused to acquiesce in outdated notions of “liberty,” “justice,” and “equality,” and who strived to better them.

And so we must be careful, when focusing on the events which took place in Philadelphia two centuries ago, that we not overlook the momentous events which followed, and thereby lose our proper sense of perspective. Otherwise, the odds are that for many Americans the bicentennial celebration will be little more than a blind pilgrimage to the shrine of the original document now stored in a vault in the National Archives. If we seek, instead, a sensitive understanding of the Constitution’s inherent defects, and its promising evolution through 200 years of history, the celebration of the “Miracle at Philadelphia” will, in my view, be a far more meaningful and humbling experience. We will see that the true miracle was not the birth of the Constitution, but its life, a life nurtured through two turbulent centuries of our own making, and a life embodying much good fortune that was not.

I could not agree more.