From the moment of emancipation, freedpeople gathered at churches to celebrate community events. Black Methodist and Baptist congregations spread rapidly across the South following the Civil War. In these churches, African Americans were no longer forced to sit in the back benches listening to white preachers claim that the Bible legitimated slavery. They were no longer punished by white church leaders for moral infractions defined by white masters. Now blacks filled the pews, hired black preachers, selected their own boards of deacons and elders, and invested community resources in purchasing land, building houses of worship, and furnish-ing them. Churches were the largest structures available to freedpeople in many communities and thus were used for a variety of purposes by a host of community organizations. They often served as schools, with hymnals and Bibles used to teach reading. Churches also hosted picnics, dances, wed-dings, funerals, festivals, and other events that brought blacks together to celebrate their new sense of freedom, family, and community. Church leaders, especially ministers, often served as arbiters of community standards of morality.

One of the most important functions of black churches in the years immediately following the Civil War was as sites for political organizing. Some black ministers worried that political concerns would overwhelm spiritual devotions. Others agreed with the Reverend Charles H. Pearce of Florida, who declared, “A man in this State cannot do his whole duty as a minister except he looks out for the political interests of his people.” Whatever the views of ministers, black churches were among the few places where African Americans could express their political views free from white interference.