In 1821, one Georgia slave wrote a letter to a white preacher. “If I understand the white people,” he wrote, “they are praying for more religion in the world.” Well then, “If god sent you to preach to sinners did he direct you to keep your face to the white people constantly or is it because they give you money?” “We are carried to market and sold to the highest bidder,” and whites “never once inquire whither you are sold, to a heathen or a Christian?” Yet enslaved people continued to flock to churches, even if ministers turned their backs on them, and to hold their own religious meetings as
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