First Baptist Church (Black congregation)
At one time, segregation-- either enforced or implied-- permeated every aspect of life in Charlotte, including in its churches. Prior to the Civil War, enslaved persons attended the First Baptist Church for whites. However, in 1867, two years after the Civil War, the newly freedmen and women, sixty-six total, no longer wanted to be forced to sit in the balcony of the white church. They gathered under an oak tree on the grounds of the predominately white First Baptist Church of Charlotte to discuss their future as a congregation.