Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, General Research and Reference Division

Henry Norval Jeter, Pastor Henry N. Jeter's Twenty-five Years Experience with the Shiloh Baptist Church and Her History (Providence, RI: Remington Printing Co., 1901)

Despite racial prejudice and unfair practices that favored white laborers over black, some free people of color became successful business owners and craftsmen. And as communities expanded and built their own religious institutions, many church leaders became part of the elite black society, along with a small cadre of physicians, teachers, funeral parlor owners, and entrepreneurs. In 1885, Rev. Mahlon Van Horne (1840-1910), pastor of Union Congregational Church, became the first African American elected as a Representative to the State General Assembly of Rhode Island. He served three terms. In 1896 he was appointed Consul to St. Thomas, in the Danish West Indies. He later became a missionary in Antigua, where he died.