As US society during Reconstruction increasingly divided along the “color line,” African Americans found support and opportunities for growth within the structure of their own communities. Rural groupings of African Americans grew around long-established or new Black landowners, often expanding through strong kinship ties. They could be widely scattered or a cluster of farmsteads that formed a community; some were on the edges of rural towns and villages. Similarly, Black neighborhoods in the region’s larger towns and cities expanded around institutions established long before the war. At the center of the Black community framework stood the church, providing not just spiritual and financial support, but also avenues for personal improvement, mutual aid, and freedom to speak openly. Many Black churches served a dual function as places of both worship and education. For the most part, it was the African Americans themselves who took the lead in ensuring that there would be schools for their children and aid for the poor—whether with the help of the Freedmen’s Bureau or state and local governments, or through their own traditions of mutual aid and support rooted in African c