American MemoryLibrary of Congress / Ameritech Award Winner
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill



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This compilation of printed texts from the libraries at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill traces how Southern African Americans experienced and transformed Protestant Christianity into the central institution of community life. Coverage begins with white churches' conversion efforts, especially in the post-Revolutionary period, and depicts the tensions and contradictions between the egalitarian potential of evangelical Christianity and the realities of slavery. It focuses, through slave narratives and observations by other African American authors, on how the black community adapted evangelical Christianity, making it a metaphor for freedom, community, and personal survival. An award from the Library of Congress/Ameritech National Digital Library Competition supported the digitization of 100 titles. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill supplemented these titles with thirty-five additional texts illuminating the same theme.

The mission of the Library of Congress is to make its resources available and useful to Congress and the American people and to sustain and preserve a universal collection of knowledge and creativity for future generations. The goal of the Library's National Digital Library Program is to offer broad public access to a wide range of historical and cultural documents as a contribution to education and lifelong learning. Digital collections from other institutions complement and enhance the Library's own resources.

The Library of Congress presents these documents as part of the record of the past. These primary historical documents reflect the attitudes, perspectives, and beliefs of different times. The Library of Congress and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill do not endorse the views expressed in these collections, which may contain materials offensive to some readers.


Special Presentation
An Introduction to the Church in the Southern Black Community *

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line Home Page for this Collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill * line

The digitization and presentation of these materials by the Academic Affairs Library of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill*, as part of the digital library project Documenting the American South*, was supported by an award from the Library of Congress/Ameritech National Digital Library Competition. Links marked * are to web pages mounted at the awardee institution. The digital reproductions of the narratives are also mounted at the awardee institution.

The source materials for this collection are housed in libraries at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.* Please contact the library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with any questions or information about the original materials or requests for reproductions.


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