Eighteen ministers and church officials from St. Philip and St. Michael's Parishes seek revision of the 1800 and 1803 laws requiring "a majority" of whites to be present at religious services for people of color after sunset. For thirty years, the minister’s note, people of color have had the privilege of religious instruction after sunset, subject only to regulations by the Charleston City Council. Like other statutes passed during crises, the laws governing white attendance at worship gatherings at night are "virtually obsolete" in every part of the state. The petitioners ask that religious gatherings of people of color be governed by the City Council, "whose local knowledge, personal interest, and immediate responsibility, would seem to secure all desirable vigilance and efficiency in the execution of the laws on this subject."
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Repository: South Carolina Department of Archives and History, Columbia, South Carolina
