It was a cool fall Sunday morning in 1865. A black man, slight of build, entered a fashionable Virginia church in downtown Richmond. The ushers made themselves busy with narthex projects and acted as though they did not notice him. No one extended a welcome or offered to lead the visitor to a seat in the sanctuary.
Quietly and unobtrusively, he seated himself on the next to the last pew, near the center aisle. As more people made their way into the sanctuary, hushed whispers moved across the large...
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