"The North Carolina conference is a modern witness to the vision of the Krimmer Mennonite Brethren of Kansas and South Dakota who around the turn of the century began what historians claim was the first Mennonite work among African Americans in the United States.  A woman named Emily Pruden, who had built schools for the white and black mountaineers in the northwestern part of the state, sent out  a call for Christian teachers who would teach in these schools.  The Krimmer Mennonite Brethren responded and in 1900 sent Rev. and Mrs. Heinrich V. Wiebe to work with a school in Elk Park, NC.

    Area residents did not like whites operating a mission for blacks, and initially make life difficult for the new workers form the Midwest and Mrs. Wiebe received many threatening notes and words." Excerpts from an article by Wally Kroeker

Related History Articles:

African-Americans in North Carolina: A Symbiotic Relationship by Conrad Ostwalt

Standing up to the Ku Klux Klan: Mennonite missionaries in North Carolina