With these striking examples of sacrifice in behalf of the education of their race, the Negro churches themselves began to participate in the extension of education as a means to spread the gospel through an intelligent ministry and to enable the laity to appreciate it as the great leverage in the uplift of the man far down. The African Methodists had through the efforts of Bishop Payne already undertaken the establishment of Union Seminary near Columbus, which was finally merged with Wilberforce, established by the Methodists in 1858 near Xenia, Ohio. The African Methodists also established Western University in Kansas. To extend their educational work in the South, however, this same denomination established Allen University at Columbia in 1881; Morris Brown at Atlanta in 1885; and later other schools at Waco, Texas; Jackson, Mississippi; and Selma, Alabama. The Zion Methodist Church too was planning the establishment of Livingstone College in 1879 and removed to the present site of Salisbury in 1882, was popularized extensively by the eloquent J. C. Price. Early emphasizing education, the Colored Methodist Church opened Lane College at Jackson, Tennessee, in 1882 and later established other schools at Birmingham, Alabama, Holly Springs, Mississippi, and Tyler, Texas. With the support of the American Baptist Home Mission Society the Negro Baptists have done likewise and, moreover, have established independently of the whites other such schools as the Virginia Theological Seminary and College at Lynchburg, largely developed by the talented Gregory W. Hayes; the William J. Simmons University of Louisville; the Arkansas Baptist College, now under the direction of the efficient J. A. Booker; and the National Training School for Girls in Washington, D. C., an institution so well managed by the noted orator and indefatigable worker, Nannie H. Burroughs.
DR. WILLIAM J. SIMMONS
To make proper use of the schools various organizations coöperating under the name of Freedmen's Aid Societies sent workers into the South to meet every need of the Negro. These efforts were not altogether those of the church, but so many churchmen were connected therewith that the story of the Negro church would be incomplete without it. Coöperating with these agencies, the American Missionary Association had in 1868 as many as 532 missionaries and teachers working among the Negroes, spending as much as $400,000 a year. Then there came the National Freedmen's Relief Association of New York with 14 teachers and funds amounting to $400,000 and $250,000 in supplies; the Pennsylvania Freedmen's Relief Association or Philadelphia Society with a force of 60 teachers and a fund of $250,000 in 1865; the Western Freedmen's Aid Commission with receipts aggregating $227,000 to support teachers in the South in 1865; the Northwestern Freedmen's Aid Commission sending to the South in 1865 as many as 50 teachers. In the District of Columbia, among the Negroes themselves, there were organized and operated the National Freedmen's Relief Association and the National Association for the Relief of Destitute Colored women and children, the latter being supported by funds appropriated by Congress.
The Friends, a distinctly religious body, early participated in the same work through various local agencies. Among the first was the Friends Association of Philadelphia and its vicinity for the Relief of Colored Freedmen, which between 1863 and 1867 expended $210,500 among the freedmen in Virginia and North Carolina. More interested in education and religion, the Friends' Association for the Aid and Elevation of the Freedmen worked among the Negroes of Virginia and South Carolina, where between 1862 and 1869 they maintained 14 schools with 732 students and expended for schools, seeds, supplies, donations to asylums, and 50,000 copies of the New Testament, $57,500. The New England Friends began work among the freedmen in 1864 in Washington, D. C., operating there a store at cost prices and conducting day, evening, and Sunday schools. Finally there coöperated with the New England Friends those of Maryland organized in 1864 as the Baltimore Association for the Moral and Educational Improvement of the Colored People. This society was fortunate in receiving annually for some time a subsidy from the city of Baltimore to the amount of $20,000.
Foreign friends of the race were equally active in promoting education and religion among the freedmen. In 1863, members of the Society of Friends in England contributed to this relief work £3,000. The following year £5,000 came from this source in England and £1,500 from Ireland. That same year there came through the New England Society $2,100 from the London Freedmen's Aid Society, smaller sums from France and Ireland, and $1,313 from five Parsee firms in London. Similar contributions were secured from abroad by other relief societies organized in the United States. According to facts obtained by the Freedman's Bureau the English aid societies contributed to the relief of the Negroes between 1865 and 1869 at least $500,000. Dr. J. L. M. Curry believed that the total receipts in money and supplies reached $1,000,000.
The facts set forth above well represent the activities of the Friends and of the Congregationalists, Free Will Baptists, Wesleyans, Methodists, and Reformed Dutch, for whom the American Missionary Association served as an agent; but there were in the field several churches working independently. Among these were the Methodists, Baptists and Presbyterians. To systematize its efforts the Methodists organized in 1866 "The Freedmen Aid Society of the Methodist Church." The first efforts of this society were directed toward primary, normal, and higher education. In 1868 the Methodists had then established through this agency 29 schools with 51 teachers and 5,000 students in Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, and Georgia. By the end of the sixth year of its existence the receipts of the society amounted to $315,100.
During these years the American Baptist Home Missionary Association supported by Presbyterians and United Brethren in Christ, was sending workers right in the wake of the Union armies invading the Mississippi Valley. The Baptists had opened a school for Negroes in Alexandria in 1862, and by 1864 had sent missionaries into the District of Columbia, Virginia, the Carolinas, Tennessee, and Louisiana. Because of the freedom exercised by the Baptists locally, there was among them much duplication of effort which resulted in confusion; but the American Baptist Home Missionary Association finally emerged as a unifying factor among these workers. This society had made such rapid strides by 1867 that it had in the field 50 ordained ministers and a large number of Negro students in training for the work. The Free-Will Baptists while coöperating with the American Home Missionary Association made some efforts by themselves. They carried on some work in the Shenandoah Valley and in the West with 40 missionaries and teachers and 3,467 students.
The Presbyterians also took this work seriously. The General Assembly in session at Pittsburg in 1865 appointed a special committee on freedmen, with 18 members, two of whom were designated as secretary and treasurer. As there were already in the field 36 teachers as missionaries supported by local societies, this general bureau took over their work. The following year there were in the field 55 missionaries, reporting 3,256 day pupils, 2,043 Sunday School scholars, and six churches with 526 members, in Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina, and Kansas. The income for this work was $25,350 in 1865, together with 30 or 40 boxes of clothing; but between 1865 and 1870 this denomination expended $244,700 to maintain their workers, who in 1820 had increased to 157, of whom 105 were Negroes. The Old School and United Presbyterians did not accomplish so much but they had a few missions here and there. In 1864, there were in Washington five schools with 174 students supported by the Reformed Presbyterian Board of Missions with an expenditure of $3,000 a year.