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Baptist churches became popular among African Americans in the South in part because they offered more membership rights than other denominations. Until the nineteenth century, and unlike the more-elite Episcopal church, Baptist churches routinely offered free and enslaved blacks full membership, and sometimes roles like exhorter or deacon, in their congregations; they restricted leadership roles like elder and pastor to whites. Until 1831, blacks were also free to lead their own separate Baptist congregations, providing a level of autonomy for African American communities nonexistent in most other areas of southern society. After Nat Turner’s rebellion in 1831, white Virginians become fearful that violence would result from assembling black communities, so the General Assembly passed laws restricting enslaved and free blacks from worshipping without white supervision. ....

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