"The history of the Palestine Baptist Church, Simpson County Mississippi, relates such a story. The Palestine Baptist Church was organized in 1786 (one year before the United States Constitution was ratified) by twelve men, eleven white and one black. The Church has served the community from that date to the present. In 1858 the church had 175 members, 100 white and 75 black. These black members were a vital part of the ongoing evangelical work of the church. These black members were a vital part of the ongoing evangelical work of the church. The significance of the black members of the church is obvious: The first Baptist church west of the Mississippi River, for example, was established in Louisiana by Joseph Wills, a black preacher....

"The Baptists did this less by deliberate missionary efforts than by accepting Negro members on a basis of Christian brotherhood that seems strange in the twentieth-century South. There were many instances in which gifted Negroes were allowed to preach to congregations of both races."

"The South Was Right!" 1991.

I don't have my copy, but if somebody would look up the references 94 and 95 for page 112 I would appreciate it.