NamSouth

[btownsend]

The Cape Fear Historical Institute’s online historical resource has added a very rare and now-transcribed document, “An Address Delivered to the Colored People By Their Request at the Wilmington Theatre, July 26, 1865” to its historical essays page. The recently freed slaves of the area asked Mr. Waddell, a prominent local attorney, Confederate officer and prewar Unionist, to address them regarding the new relationship of the two races living side by side in Wilmington.
Bernhard Thuersam, Director
Cape Fear Historical Institute

“An Address Delivered to the Colored People By Their Request at the Wilmington Theatre, July 26, 1865”
http://tinyurl.com/yha8ko3
"......it is unjust and a mistake to suppose that the white people among who you were born and raised, with whom you played when you were children, and served as you grew up, have all at once turned to be your enemies, because those of you who were formerly slaves have suddenly been set free."