Jan. 12, 1865
As the Civil War neared an end, Union Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman and Secretary of War Edwin Stanton met with local Black leaders in Savannah, Georgia.
The Rev. Garrison Frazier , a 67-year-old imposing man, spoke for the group. Asked what slavery meant, he replied, “Slavery is, receiving by irresistible power the work of another man, and not by his consent.”
He told the Army leaders that they wanted to be free from the dominion of white men, wanted to be educated and wanted to own land they could work and earn a living…