In America after the Civil War, the emancipation of four million slaves and the explosion of Chinese immigration fundamentally challenged traditional ideas about who belonged in the national polity. As Americans struggled to redefine citizenship in the United States, the "Negro Problem" and the "Chinese Question" dominated the debate.
During this turbulent period, which witnessed the Supreme Court's "Plessy v. Ferguson" decision and passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act, among other restrictive measures, American Baptists promoted religion instead of race as the primary marker of...
In America after the Civil War, the emancipation of four million slaves and the explosion of Chinese immigration fundamentally challenged tradition...
