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Willis J. Madden was born in 1862 and was the son of a mixed-race woman and a white man. He discusses his childhood, education, and work as a teacher and Baptist preacher.

William I. Johnson Jr., was born enslaved and was a butler for the Johnson family of Goochland County and Richmond. He describes slave auctions and slave hiring. He details his Civil War experiences, including how he escaped to Union lines. After the…

Before the Civil War, churches often had black and white members, although they were segregated within the congregation. African American churches were required by Virginia law to have white ministers, and after the Civil War, many African Americans…

In November 1865, the Norfolk County Court petitioned the officer of the Freedmen's Bureau in Norfolk to take away the firearms belonging to African Americans. Local white residents had complained complained about African Americans "in the habit of…

Major General Oliver O. Howard took command of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands in May 1865 and appointed commissioners for "the insurrectionary states." He ordered them to "introduce practical systems of compensated labor" and to…