Guide to the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. Board of Missions for Freedmen Records

At the conclusion of the Civil War in 1865, the General Assembly (PCUSA-Old School) appointed a committee to establish churches and schools for freedmen. The Reverend S.C. Logan served as the committee's first Secretary. With the reunion of the Old and New Schools in 1870, this committee merged with the Freedmen's Department of the New School Board of Home Missions; the new committee was named Committee of Missions for Freedmen.

In 1883, the Freedmen's Committee was formally incorporated as the Board of Missions for Freedmen. The new board, like its predecessors, helped to educate and supply black teachers and preachers. It built and supported black schools, churches, colleges and seminaries and prescribed courses of study to be used. This work was carried out in the southern United States.

In 1923, the Freedmen's Board was one of several boards and agencies which merged to become the Board of National Missions. Two units of the new board--the Unit of Schools and Hospitals and the Unit of Work for Colored People--took on the projects and responsibilities of the Freedmen's Board. However, the Freedmen's Board continued its legal existence as a holding corporation until 1972, when the Board of National Missions was reorganized as the Program Agency.