After Slavery

Rev. Henry McNeal Turner Reports on Organizing among Freedpeople in Georgia

This is one of a number of reports received by Robert C. Schenck, a former Union Army general, later a prominent member of the Republican Party and one of the individuals responsible for organizing on its behalf across the former Confederate states after the war. Schenck’s collected papers are one of the most important sources for examining the relationship between the national Republican leadership and early grassroots mobilization among the former slaves. This report was submitted by the Rev. Henry McNeal Turner, a minister (later Bishop) prominent in the African Methodist Episcopalian (A. M.E.) Church and one of the most energetic black organizers during the early Reconstruction period. Born free at Newbery, South Carolina, Turner served as chaplain in a ‘colored’ regiment during the war and toured the southern states in the immediate aftermath of emancipation, eventually settling into a prominent role in Republican politics in Georgia. There he was elected to the state legislature in 1868 but denied his seat—along with 26 other black officials— by the state’s white conservatives, until the federal government intervened. Dejected by the failure of Reconstruction to secure equality for blacks in the United States, Turner would later become prominent in advocating emigration to Africa. Here he recounts his experience in organizing one of the first assemblies of freedpeople in Georgia in July 1867.


From Macon, Georgia under date of July 8th [1867] the Reverend H. M. Turner, a colored speaker and organizer writes as follows:

“Dear Sir:
This will inform you that our Union Republican Convention is over and our platform framed and adopted. It is not as replete with good sense and prudent feeling as I desired but they overruled me in the committee room and I submitted to the majority.”
After the convention adjourned, I ordered all the colored delegates to remain until the next day, which they did, with a few exceptions, and met in the Methodist Church. Some 40 counties were represented in this assemblage (Turner’s Convention as they called it) and I spent five hours in instructing them concerning their duties assisted by Costin^a and Campbell (colored) and Mr. Timony (white.) We read over the dialogues to the delegates and commented on them at great length, so that no mistake might be entertained. While we were reading the dialogue, I acted as the Freedman and Mr. Campbell as the true Republican, I asking and he answering in a suitable voice, giving emphasis to the facts being related. You ought to have seen the effect which it produced. When Campbell would read some of those pointed replies, the whole house would ring with shouts, and shake with the spasmotic motions and peculiar gestures of the audience.”
The rule which we adopted it is to have them read in our country churches, societies, leagues, clubs, balls, picknics and all other gatherings, allowing one man to sit back and the audience and read the questions and the other to stand up in the pulpit or some conspicuous part of the house and read the answers. This, I find is much better than merely letting one man read them. The two voices and the interrogatory manner which can be assumed has double the effect upon the uneducated masses. I have ordered them read in our meetings until our people know them by heart and can relate them from memory.”
The dialogues are sought for with eagerness everywhere. I went twenty miles in the country yesterday and while going along the road, I saw a crowd of 25 or 30 persons sitting under a tree. When I came up I found them reading the dialogue”
“The rebels are doing all they can to mislead the colored people in the rural districts by telling them all kinds of falsehoods.”

^a John T. Costin. See Document 5.

Source: Robert C. Schenck Papers, Miami University Archives, Ohio

Illustration: Freedmen's Meeting along the Georgia Coast, by John Karst, ca. 1866

Questions to Consider:
1. The vast majority of former slaves were illiterate, having been denied literacy under the slave system. What kinds of problems might this present for attempting to organize a political party in the South? How did Turner attempt to ‘get around’ the problem of illiteracy?
2. What evidence does the document present in relation to freedpeoples’ enthusiasm for politics? Why might we expect former slaves to respond this way in the early years of their freedom? What would it take for such enthusiasm to be sustained over the years ahead? What kinds of developments might curtail early excitement over their political prospects?
3. In the sentence crossed out in paragraph one, Turner commented on the lack of ‘good sense” and “prudence” in the platform adopted by the state Republican Party. What kinds of issues might produce tensions between freedpeople and the Republican establishment?
4. Why might the ‘dialogues’ work where a simple rule book might not?
5. In what do you suppose the “rebels” [former Confederates] might be attempting to “mislead the colored people,” as Turner observes, and why might they be more effective in rural rather than urban districts?

Further Reading:
Angell, Stephen Ward. Bishop Henry McNeal Turner and African-American Religion in the South
Bragg, William Harris. “Reconstruction in Georgia,” in New Georgia Encyclopedia http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-2533: February 2009
Campbell, James T. Songs of Zion: The African Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States and South Africa
Cimbala, Paul A. Under the Guardianship of the Nation: The Freedmen's Bureau and the Reconstruction of Georgia, 1865-1870
Dittmer, John. “The Education of Henry McNeal Turner,” in Litwack, Leon and August Meier, eds. Black Leaders of the Nineteenth Century, 253-274.
Drago, Edmund L. Black Politicians and Reconstruction in Georgia: A Splendid Failure
Formwalt, Lee W. “The Origins of African-American Politics in Southwest Georgia: A Case Study of Black Political Organization during Presidential Reconstruction, 1865-1867,” Journal of Negro History 77:4 (Autumn 1992): 211-222.
Walker, Clarence. A Rock in a Weary Land: The African Methodist Episcopal Church during the Civil War and Reconstruction