This was at one time the “slave gallery” of the historic Midway Congregational Church in Liberty County. The Midway Church & Society was active from 1754 until 1867, when it rented the Church building to the African American members, who had chosen to start their own church as soon as they were able to do so. During that 100+ years before 1867, more than 1100 named African Americans, enslaved and free, were members of the Midway Church, dating back to Scipio and Judy, admitted to membership in 1756.
Photo by Tammy Lee Bradley – rights held by Liberty County CVB.
According to Church and other records that still exist today, African American members went through the standard membership process. White and Black members attended the same churches in Liberty County before the Civil War, but enslaved members of the Midway Church did not necessarily attend the same church attended by their enslavers, or even belong to the same denomination.
A fascinating list compiled by Rev. Charles Colcock Jones in 1846 of all the African Americans who were Church members in Liberty County’s 15th District at that time demonstrates this. In fact, the five people held in slavery by my 4th great-grandfather (John Ashmore) who were church members at that time attended three different churches. One of them, Toby Ashmore (1810-1877), was baptized in the 1830s into the Pleasant Grove Church, an offshoot of the Midway Church, where John Ashmore was an elder, but by 1846 was attending the North Newport Baptist Church, now the First African Baptist Church. See Rev. Jones’ list at: https://theyhadnames.net/1846-c-c-jones-census/.