While fear of slave insurrection led to prohibitions on black churches meeting openly in many parts in the South, the black church movement flourished in the North. As members of the Church, blacks were ostensibly the brothers and sisters of whites, equals in the eyes of God. This sentiment was instrumental in helping blacks to gain the right to be ordained as Baptist and Methodist ministers

During the Antebellum period and after the Civil War, black churches, not just in the North, but throughout the nation, offered African Americans refuge from oppression and focused on the spiritual, secular, and political concerns of the black community. Following emancipation, the church continued to exist at the center of black community life. With freedom, African-Americans rejected the second-class status they had been offered by white co-religionists and withdrew in large numbers from biracial congregations

writer of amazing Grace—-Newton wrote the words from personal experience; he grew up without any particular religious conviction, but his life's path was formed by a variety of twists and coincidences that were often put into motion by others' reactions to what they took as his recalcitrant insubordination

1 Amazing grace (how sweet the sound)
that saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
was blind, but now I see.
2 'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
and grace my fears relieved;
how precious did that grace appear
the hour I first believed!
3 Through many dangers, toils and snares
I have already come:
'tis grace has brought me safe thus far,
and grace will lead me home.
4 The Lord has promised good to me,
his word my hope secures;
he will my shield and portion be
as long as life endures.

In reply to Barryoh so slaves benefited from slavery.

How did American Christians in the nineteenth century come to see slavery as something that needed to be abolished? Christianity was a central feature of nineteenth-century American life for both slaveholders and anti-slavery activists. To argue persuasively against slavery, abolitionists had to find ways to use the Bible and Christian tradition, along with American patriotic and domestic ideals, to make their case.

Leonard Grimes
Leonard Grimes (1815-1873), born in Virginia, was an abolitionist and pastor who played an active role on the Underground Railroad. After witnessing the horrors of slavery as a young man, Grimes determined to do all he could to help people escape.

He got a job as a hackman (horses and carriages for hire) to provide cover for his work on the Underground Railroad. In 1839 he was arrested in Washington, D.C. (yes, our nation’s capitol) for transporting a family to freedom and sent to Virginia, where he was sentenced to two years of hard labor in the Richmond penitentiary.

More than 130 Indian residential schools operated across Canada. They were a deliberate attempt to destroy First Nations, Inuit and Métis communities and ways of life. This system was part of a broader process of colonization and genocide

Jeremiah
10:23 O LORD, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps

12 For he will deliver the needy who cry out,
the afflicted who have no one to help.
13 He will take pity on the weak and the needy
and save the needy from death.
14 He will rescue them from oppression and violence,
for precious is their blood in his sight.

Exodus 23:9
9 “Do not oppress a foreigner; you yourselves know how it feels to be foreigners, because you were foreigners in Egypt.

Deuteronomy 10:18
18 He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing.