Excerpts from a Protest Memorial sent to President Andrew Johnson, 1865.

On June 10, 1865, more than 3,000 African Americans gathered in the First Baptist Church of Richmond, Virginia, to listen as a “protest memorial” that had been sent to President Andrew Johnson on their behalf, was read aloud: 

Mr. President,

We have been appointed a committee by a public meeting of the colored people of Richmond, Va., to make known . . . the wrongs, as we conceive them to be, by which we are sorely oppressed. . . .

We represent a population of more than 20,000 colored people, including Richmond and Manchester, . . . more than 6,000 of our people are members . . . of Christian churches, and nearly our whole population . . . attend divine services.  Among us there are at least 2,000 men who are worth $200 to $500; 200 who have property valued at from $1,000 to $5,000, and a number who are worth from $5,000 to $20,000. . . .

None of our people are in the alms-house, and when we were slaves the aged and infirm who were turned away from the homes of hard masters, who had been enriched by their toil, our benevolent societies supported while they lived, and buried when they died, and comparatively few of us have found it necessary to ask for Government rations, which have been so bountifully bestowed upon the unrepentant Rebels of Richmond. . . . During the. . . Slaveholders’ Rebellion we have been true and loyal to the United States Government; . . . We have given aid and comfort to the soldiers of freedom (for which several of our people, of both sexes, have been severely punished by stripes and imprisonment). We have been their pilots and their scouts, and have safely conducted them through many perilous adventures. . . .

Reprinted from We Ask Only for Even-Handed Justice. Black Voices from Reconstruction 1865-1977. Copyright © 2014 by University of Massachusetts Press. Published by the University of Massachusetts Press. (Document 4.7.8)