Robert S. Laws

[2] At some point, Laws was sold to Richard H. Lynch of Washington County, Virginia, who published a $100 (~$2,475 in 2023) reward in 1863 for the return of a runaway slave, 24-year-old Robert Laws, who was described as "5 feet 7 inches high and weighs about 175 pounds" and likely headed to Middlesex County, Virginia.

In 1866, he married Patsey A. Williams in Washington, D.C.[4] In 1865, the U.S. Congress established Freedmen's Bureau to administer various camps to house formerly enslaved African Americans, including Freedman's Village, a site on General Robert E. Lee former estate in Arlington County, Virginia.

[5] Harper's Weekly reported the village also included a hospital, a "home" for the aged, and other public buildings.

[6] Abolitionist and women's rights activist Sojourner Truth served as a counselor at the village for over a year.

[11] Once new repairs were completed on the church, a new cornerstone was laid on October 10, 1875 at a ceremony led by the abolitionist, Rev.

[15] Mount Zion Baptist Church hosted a four-night revival meeting celebrating its 135th anniversary.

He reviewed the emancipation parade with the honored guest and speaker Frederick Douglass as well as with Col. Milton M. Holland and Mr. W. Calvin Chase.

[24] Laws was associated with Mount Olive Baptist Church in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania since at least August 1901,[25] but was not officially named pastor until November 1901.

[29] On September 20, educators Booker T. Washington of Tuskegee Institute, William Hooper Council, founder of Alabama A&M from Normal, Alabama, and Richard Robert Wright, Sr. of Savannah, Georgia, were scheduled to speak at Shiloh Baptist Church, the largest African American church in Birmingham.