The Morning Star Steamer

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On January 1, 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation was issued by President Abraham Lincoln, which supposedly ended 244 years of African slavery in the United States. At that time, there were 4,500,000 colored people in the United States. Although the Emancipation Proclamation was issued the ugly shadows and reminders of slavery continue to remain over the entire nation, especially in the South.

The Seventh-day Adventists Church Organization had established its General Conference headquarters in 1863 in Battle Creek, Michigan. Ellen G. White, one of the Church’s founders and leaders urged the leaders within the church to do something for the Blacks in the South. Unfortunately, from 1863 to 1895 the General Conference delayed their plan of action.

In the Adventists efforts to educate the Blacks in the South there was one man by the name of James Edson White, the son of Ellen G. White who took it upon himself to answer the call. In 1895, after having built a 72' ship in Michigan, he and W. O. Palmer, his associate shipbuilder, traveled down the Mississippi River and docked at Vicksburg, Mississippi. It was there in Vicksburg, Mississippi where the ship was named "Morning Star", which became the first Seventh-day Adventist mission in the South. The ship was termed as "The Floating School'.