[Train Whistle] Following the Civil War, the south lay in economic and physical ruin. Upward of 4 million newly emancipated Black Americans were without human rights. Over the course of the next four years, Georgia’s government passed from domination by the republican legislatures (both black and white) to restoration of the control by conservative white democrats. During that relatively brief period however, the 13th, 14th, and 15th, amendments were passed, abolishing slavery, granting equal rights to the newly emancipated, and prohibiting states from denying the right to vote based on race. In Augusta, Springfield Baptist, a Black church located at the corner of 12th and Reynolds Street spawned progressive organizations and institutions that continue to affect the present. Men such as the Reverend William J. White, John Emery Bryan, and Richard C. Coulter, were instrumental in the formation of the Georgia Equal Rights Association, forerunner of the Georgia Republican Party, and the establishment of Augusta Institute, present day Morehouse College. [Train Whistle]
