Excerpt from A History of the Negro Baptists of North Carolina We have already said that questions of discipline were almost exclusively left to the white people, but in some instances fairness was shown to the colored brother, and his side received the proper considera tion. We record a single instance of this kind. A conflict ensued between a white brother and a colored sister. When the white brother was heard a motion at once was made to exclude the colored sister without hearing her side, but others insisted and it afterward prevailed to hear her side; and when they had heard her side she was justified and allowed to retain her membership. Notwithstanding there were many obstacles which stood in the way of the religious growth and develop ment of the colored people before the war, there were many devoted Christians among them. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

This meticulously researched book offers a comprehensive history of the African American Baptist churches of North Carolina. From their origins in the 18th century to the challenges they faced during the Civil Rights era, J. A. Whitted chronicles the struggles and triumphs of a vital segment of North Carolina's religious and social history. With an eye for detail and a deep respect for his subject, Whitted presents a nuanced and compelling portrait of a vibrant community. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

The writer of this little book has fulfilled a long cherished desire, not in its best sense to say a history, but to lay some kind of foundation, so that the historian of the future may have something to build upon and may someday give to the world the facts concerning the service, sacrifice and achievements of the Negro Baptists of North Carolina. While the difficulty in obtaining information at times has caused discouragement and delay, the writer has never engaged in any task which has brought to him so much satisfaction and pleasure, and he will feel amply repaid if the readers find half so much pleasure and profit in the reading. The writer, too, expresses the hope when some other shall undertake to build on this foundation it will not be so difficult to obtain the necessary information. To all who have responded and have furnished data for this book the writer wishes to express his grateful acknowledgment.

In 1829, David Walker, a free black born in Wilmington, North Carolina, wrote one of America's most provocative political documents of the nineteenth century: An Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World. Decrying the savage and unchristian treatment blacks suffered in the United States, Walker challenged his "afflicted and slumbering brethren" to rise up and cast off their chains. His innovative efforts to circulate this pamphlet in the South outraged slaveholders, who eventually uncovered one of the boldest and most extensive plans to empower slaves ever conceived in antebellum America. Though Walker died in 1830, the Appeal remained a rallying point for many African Americans for years to come. In this ambitious book, Peter Hinks combines social biography with textual analysis to provide a powerful new interpretation of David Walker and his meaning for antebellum American history. Little was formerly known about David Walker's life. Through painstaking research, Hinks has situated Walker much more precisely in the world out of which he arose in early nineteenth-century coastal North and South Carolina. He shows the likely impact of Wilmington's independent black Methodist church upon Walker, the probable sources of his early education, and--most significant--the pivotal influence that Denmark Vesey's Charleston had on his thinking about religion and resistance. Walker's years in Boston from 1825, his mounting involvement with the Northern black reform movement, and the remarkable underground network used to distribute the Appeal, all reconstructed here, testify to Walker's centrality in the development of American abolitionism and antebellum black activism. Hinks's thorough exegesis of the Appeal illuminates how this document was one of the most startling and incisive indictments of American racism ever written. He shows how Walker labored to harness the optimistic activism of evangelical Christianity and revolutionary republicanism to inspire African Americans to a new sense of personal worth and to their capacity to challenge the ideology and institutions of white supremacy. Yet the failure of Walker's bold and novel formulations to threaten American slavery and racism proved how difficult, if not impossible, it was to orchestrate large-scale and effective slave resistance in antebellum America. To Awaken My Afflicted Brethren fathoms for the first time this complex individual and the ambiguous history surrounding him and his world.