Freedmen's Aid Society records

The Freedmen’s Aid Society was an agency of the Methodist Episcopal Church created after the Civil War for the purpose of establishing schools and colleges for African Americans in the South. In 1866 the Methodist Episcopal Church held a convention in Cincinnati which organized the Freedmen's Aid Society. The regional annual conferences of the church approved the organization, and the General Conference, the decision-making body of the denomination, of 1868 passed resolutions sanctioning the society. All annual conferences were requested to take collections on its behalf, and the bishops were authorized to appoint a traveling preacher as the corresponding secretary. Richard Sutton Rust, a minister from New England and former president of Wilberforce University in Ohio, was selected as the first corresponding secretary and, subsequently, was reelected to this position by the General Conferences of 1872 and 1876.

A great part of the work of the society was in supporting teachers in various institutions begun by or connected with Freedmen’s Aid, and in preparing young men for the ministry. There were plans for the creation of a seminary as well. The society was directed by a Board of Managers, which was elected by the General Conference. The denomination also called upon its annual conferences to support the work of the society. The denomination continued to outline the duties and responsibilities of the Freedmen's Aid Society as an agency of the church until its reorganization in 1920. In 1920 the society was reorganized as the Board of Education for Negroes. At the creation of the Methodist Church in 1939, the Board of Education for Negroes and its work were absorbed into the work of the Board of Education.