When the war was over and African American Christians gained citizenship in the South, their white Christian neighbors did not repent and ask forgiveness for their sins. Visit historic black churches throughout the South today, and you’ll find cornerstones marked 1865. With the legal right to own property, formerly enslaved Christians followed Richard Allen and others before them to establish congregations where the Christianity of the slaveholder did not hold sway. Today, we call these congregations “black churches” and often assume that people self-segregate because of cultural differences
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