A Place to Worship

A chronicle of the historically rich spiritual gatherings so vital to rural African American life Camp meetings—also called revivals—originated with circuit-riding Methodist preachers who gathered congregations in open fields and town squares. However, the sermons had messages that were not always welcomed by mainstream Protestant churches in the colonial and antebellum South. With the help of white itinerant preachers, enslaved African Americans organized their own camp meetings in conjunction