The time when Frederick Douglass visited Lafayette to lecture at a local church

Editor's note: To celebrate Black History Month, the Journal & Courier is featuring daily briefs about prominent Black community members in Tippecanoe County.

LAFAYETTE, Ind. — On the evening of April 18, 1867, the Baptist Church could not hold all the people in Lafayette who wanted to hear Frederick Douglass’ lecture. For nearly two and a half hours the distinguished civil rights leader spoke on the future of racial justice and political equality. The large crowd was attentive and appreciative.

The Lafayette Daily Courier described his impressive appearance: “He stood before his audience, like a statue of Jefferson done in bronze — calm, majestic, impressive — the true type of a self-made man, rising superior to the circumstances which chained him down, and achieving greatness in the face of unreasoning prejudice and unscrupulous wrong.”

Martin Peirce, a Lafayette banker, secured the appearance of Douglass on behalf of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. After the Civil War, the migration of Southern freedmen to Lafayette increased the African church membership. By then the 20-year-old African Church building on Cincinnati Street had fallen into disrepair.

The African Methodist Episcopal Church sought public donations from lectures, subscriptions, suppers, and fairs to secure more than $3,300 for the purchase of the St. James Lutheran Church and school buildings on Ferry Street. The net proceeds from the Frederick Douglass lecture resulted in more than $200 for the African Methodist Episcopal Church.

This article originally appeared on Lafayette Journal & Courier: Frederick Douglass visited Lafayette to lecture at a church in 1867