In the 1870s black churches developed in the pockets of Stafford County where African Americans lived. Generally, the churches formed schools and evolved benevolence groups, such as the Union Branch of the True Vine, by which mutual assistance was possible. Community centers thus developed. The oldest black Stafford churches were all Baptist.  Some of them were Mount Olive, Shiloh (Old Site), Mount Hope, Bethlehem Primitive, Little Forest, and Oak Grove were a part of this movement and formed the basis for later civil rights progress.       (Widewater’s Oak Grove Baptist Church is shown above.  To read more about this church you can visit the Exhibit called “Places of the Spirit” in our Virtual Museum.)