Black Churches in the Memphis Massacre
At the Memphis Massacre 1866 Project, Elizabeth L. Jemison writes on the role of black churches in the Memphis riots after the Civil War. According to a Congressional inquiry, the angry mob caused major property damage, destroying every black church in the city. “Churches supported black southerners’ claims for civil and political rights as citizens at a time when those rights were deeply contested,” Jemison writes. “For that support, black churches earned white southerners’ criticism – and violence.”