Item #3634 Pioneer Colored Christians. Harriet Parks Miller.

Pioneer Colored Christians

Clarksville, Tn. W.P. Titus, Printer and Binder, 1911. 103pp., plus eleven photographic plates. Grey printed wrappers. Item #3634

A history of the African American community of Port Royal, Tennessee, centered around the Carr family, founders of the historic Mt. Zion Baptist Church. The history was compiled by Harriet Parks Miller, a white resident of Port Royal, from interviews with church pioneers and community members. The book begins with an interview of then-86-year-old Aunt Kitty Carr, who was born free in the state of Virginia in 1915, followed by an interview of her husband, Uncle Horace Carr, the first pastor of the church, who was born into slavery in Tennessee. The book contains anecdotes of antebellum times, for instance descriptions of how whites and blacks used to worship in the same church, an interview in which Uncle John McGowan describes being sold, and a description of an antebellum corn shucking by Horace Carr. The book also covers the Civil War period as well as the period after the war, with a focus on the pioneering days of Mt. Zion Church, including tales of early sermons and camp meetings, the organization of the church, and sketches of prominent local religious figures. The tone is generally respectful of the African American community, with the interviews free of dialect, and the author providing a positive assessment of abolition, rather than the romanticized versions of the antebellum past so common in that era, noting that "surely the hand of divinity was in it all...the Institution of slavery was abolished."

Price: $650.00

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