Author: Catherine G. OBrion

ENTRY

George L. Dixon (1818–1907)

George Lewis Dixon was a Baptist minister in the Fredericksburg area. Born with slave status, he and his family fled from Fredericksburg to Washington, D.C., during the American Civil War (1861–1865). After the war ended, Dixon returned to Fredericksburg, where he was elected pastor of Shiloh Baptist Church and was active in the local Republican Party. Dixon was representative of a unique generation of African American leaders, largely self-educated preachers, who inspired their communities to rebuild and expand antebellum churches and adapt them to the changing needs of their communities in a post-slavery society. He died in 1907.