"Who are the Free Seventh-day Adventists?" one may ask. The Free Seventh-day Adventist began in 1915 under the leadership of noted Adventist preachers, John Wesley Manns and Lewis Charles Sheafe. These pioneer workers never had any doctrinal disagreements with regular Seventh-day Adventists, but had to organize among themselves due to the racial restrictions of the times. These colored ministers suffered and endured great injustices both inside and outside their church. It was their desire to carry forward the work began by Edson White in Vicksburg, Mississippi, yet they were met with discouraging circumstances on every side. They refused to be hindered by any man. In the “Watson Letter” (Letter 267, 1905 and Letter 262, 1902), it becomes obvious that Ellen White was very supportive through the use of her tithe of the work Elder Manns and others were performing in the south along with her son, J. Edson White, who established the Southern Publishing House. (Pamphlet 127, e.g.)