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Spirited Away: Black Evangelicals And The Gospel Of Freedom, 1790-1890, Alicestyne Turley

University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations

The true nineteenth-century story of the Underground Railroad begins in the South and is spread North by free blacks, escaping southern slaves, and displaced, white, anti-slavery Protestant evangelicals. This study examines the role of free blacks, escaping slaves, and white Protestant evangelicals influenced by tenants of Kentucky’s Second Great Awakening who were inspired, directly or indirectly, to aid in African American community building. The impact of Kentucky’s Great Revival resulted in creation and expansion of systems of escape commonly referred to as the “Underground Railroad” which led to self-emancipation among enslaved African Americans, the establishment of free black settlements in …