As the nation marks the 400th anniversary of the forced arrival of Africans in Virginia — and Alabama has its bicentennial — a walk through Montgomery's streets reveals the legacy of slavery in America.

A who's who of black history figures worshiped and spoke at Mother African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church — including abolitionists Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth — when it was at earlier locations after its founding in 1796 or at its current neo-Gothic site on 137th Street in Harlem.

The change marked a 180-degree turn for a ministry founded on fundamentalist Protestantism ministry founded on fundamentalist Protestantism that has separated Catholics and Protestants in this region of the South for generations.

Your thoughts: NCR readers are welcome to join the conversation and send us a letter to the editor. Below is a sampling of letters received in the month of June 2019. 

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