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# A Deep Dive into African Methodist Episcopal Church History: From Resistance to Resilience
Author: Dr. Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Professor Emerita of History and of African and African American Studies at Harvard University. Dr. Higginbotham's extensive scholarship on African American history, including her work on women's history and the history of religion, makes her uniquely qualified to analyze the complex trajectory of the African Methodist Episcopal Church.
Keyword: African Methodist Episcopal Church History
The Genesis of the AME Church: A History Forged in Resistance (H2)
The African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church’s history is inextricably linked to the struggle for freedom and equality in the face of systemic racism and oppression. Its origins lie in the early 19th century, a time of intense racial tension in the United States. African Americans, denied equal participation in predominantly white Methodist congregations, were forced to worship separately and often endured discriminatory practices even within these segregated spaces. The story of the AME Church's birth is, therefore, a story of resilience and the unwavering determination to establish a space for Black religious expression free from the constraints of white supremacy. The early African Methodist Episcopal Church history illustrates the deep connection between religious faith and the fight for civil rights. This yearning for autonomy and self-determination fueled the formation of independent Black churches, notably the AME Church, which became a cornerstone of the Black community. The story of Richard Allen, Absalom Jones, and other founders is critical to understanding the African Methodist Episcopal Church history. These courageous individuals challenged the racial injustices of their time and laid the foundation for a church that would become a beacon of hope and a powerful force for social change.
Growth and Expansion: The AME Church Beyond its Founding (H2)
The early decades of the 19th century witnessed significant growth and expansion of the AME Church. Its influence extended beyond its initial geographic boundaries in Philadelphia, spreading across the nation, fuelled by the Great Migration and the unwavering faith of its members. The African Methodist Episcopal Church history during this period is marked by the establishment of new congregations, the development of robust theological frameworks, and the emergence of influential leaders who shaped the church's identity and direction. The AME Church played a vital role in providing essential services to its community, offering not just spiritual guidance but also educational opportunities, social support, and a crucial platform for political activism. The African Methodist Episcopal Church history demonstrates its unwavering commitment to education, establishing schools and seminaries to train its clergy and educate its members. This commitment to education and social upliftment was—and continues to be—a hallmark of the AME Church’s enduring legacy.
The AME Church and the Civil Rights Movement (H2)
The African Methodist Episcopal Church history is profoundly intertwined with the struggle for civil rights. From its inception, the church served as a powerful force for social justice, providing a safe haven for those fighting against racial discrimination and advocating for equality. The AME Church played a pivotal role in the Civil Rights Movement, offering its resources, its pulpits, and its unwavering support to leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. Its members actively participated in protests, marches, and other forms of activism, demonstrating their commitment to achieving racial justice. The church's involvement in the Civil Rights Movement is a testament to its enduring legacy as a champion of social change and a steadfast advocate for the rights of the marginalized. The African Methodist Episcopal Church history is one that should be studied alongside the history of the civil rights movement in order to fully understand its impact.
The AME Church in the 21st Century: Current Relevance and Challenges (H2)
Today, the AME Church continues to be a vital institution within the Black community and beyond. It maintains its commitment to social justice, addressing contemporary issues such as racial inequality, poverty, and systemic oppression. While facing new challenges in the 21st century, such as declining membership in some areas and the need to adapt to changing demographics, the African Methodist Episcopal Church history demonstrates its remarkable capacity for resilience and its enduring relevance in a rapidly evolving world. The church's dedication to its core values—faith, justice, and community—remains steadfast, ensuring its continued impact on society. The ongoing relevance of the AME Church is a testament to its historical significance and its continued commitment to serving its members and the broader community. The African Methodist Episcopal Church history serves as a powerful reminder of the enduring power of faith, resilience, and the unwavering pursuit of justice.
Summary (H2)
This analysis of African Methodist Episcopal Church history reveals its deep roots in the struggle against racial injustice and its pivotal role in the fight for civil rights. From its founding as a response to racial discrimination in white Methodist churches to its active participation in the Civil Rights Movement and its ongoing commitment to social justice, the AME Church has consistently demonstrated its resilience and relevance. Understanding the African Methodist Episcopal Church history provides crucial insight into the broader history of African Americans and the enduring legacy of their struggle for equality and freedom.
Publisher: Oxford University Press (H2)
Oxford University Press is a highly reputable academic publisher with a long-standing commitment to publishing rigorous and authoritative scholarship. Their expertise in history and religious studies makes them a credible source for a book on African Methodist Episcopal Church history.
Editor: Dr. [Insert Name of a prominent historian specializing in African American religious history] (H2)
[Insert a brief description of the editor's qualifications, highlighting their expertise in African American religious history and their contributions to the field. For example: "Dr. [Name] is a renowned historian specializing in African American religious history, with a particular focus on the social and political dimensions of Black religious institutions. Their publications on the subject have significantly advanced the field, and their editorial expertise ensures the accuracy and scholarly rigor of this work."]
Conclusion (H2)
The African Methodist Episcopal Church's history is a powerful testament to the enduring strength of faith, the resilience of the human spirit, and the transformative power of collective action in the face of adversity. Its legacy extends far beyond its religious functions, shaping social, political, and cultural landscapes for generations. The study of African Methodist Episcopal Church history offers invaluable insights into the complexities of racial identity, religious freedom, and the ongoing pursuit of justice. It is a history that continues to resonate today, reminding us of the crucial role that faith-based organizations can play in driving social change and fostering a more equitable and just society.
FAQs (H2)
1. What were the primary reasons for the founding of the AME Church? The AME Church was founded primarily due to the systemic racism and segregation within white Methodist churches that denied Black members equal rights and opportunities for participation.
2. Who were some of the key figures in the early AME Church? Richard Allen and Absalom Jones are considered the founders, but many other dedicated individuals contributed to its establishment and growth.
3. What role did the AME Church play in the abolitionist movement? The AME Church was a strong advocate for abolition, providing shelter to runaway slaves, actively supporting the Underground Railroad, and preaching against the evils of slavery.
4. How did the AME Church contribute to the Civil Rights Movement? The AME Church provided crucial support to the Civil Rights Movement, offering its resources, its pulpits as platforms, and its members' active participation in protests and marches.
5. What are some of the key theological beliefs of the AME Church? The AME Church embraces core Christian tenets, emphasizing social justice and the importance of service to others.
6. What are some of the challenges facing the AME Church today? The AME Church faces challenges such as declining membership in some areas, adapting to changing demographics, and addressing contemporary social issues.
7. How does the AME Church continue its work in social justice today? The AME Church remains deeply committed to social justice and continues to advocate for equality, fighting against systemic racism, poverty, and other forms of oppression.
8. What are some significant historical events in AME Church history? Key events include its founding, its expansion throughout the United States, its role in the abolitionist movement and the Civil Rights Movement, and its ongoing efforts in social justice.
9. Where can I find more information about the AME Church? The AME Church's official website, historical archives, academic journals, and published books are excellent resources for further research.
Related Articles (H2)
1. "Richard Allen and the Genesis of the AME Church": This article details the life and work of Richard Allen, focusing on his pivotal role in establishing the AME Church and his leadership in the early years.
2. "The AME Church and the Underground Railroad": This piece explores the significant contributions of the AME Church to the Underground Railroad, detailing its network of safe houses and its role in assisting runaway slaves to freedom.
3. "African American Women and the AME Church": This article examines the critical role played by African American women in the growth and development of the AME Church, highlighting their leadership and activism.
4. "The AME Church and the Civil Rights Movement: A Case Study of [Specific City/Region]": This article focuses on the specific contributions of a particular AME Church community to the Civil Rights Movement.
5. "The Theological Development of the AME Church": This explores the evolution of the AME Church's theological beliefs and practices over time.
6. "The AME Church and Education": This details the AME Church's strong commitment to education, including its founding of schools and seminaries.
7. "The AME Church in the 21st Century: Challenges and Opportunities": This article analyses the contemporary challenges faced by the AME Church and its strategies for adapting to the changing social landscape.
8. "Comparative Study: The AME Church and Other Black Denominations": This article compares and contrasts the AME Church with other historically Black denominations.
9. "The AME Church and Global Missions": This piece discusses the AME Church's expansion beyond the United States and its global missionary work.
| african methodist episcopal church history: The African Methodist Episcopal Church Dennis C. Dickerson, 2020-01-09 Explores the emergence of African Methodism within the black Atlantic and how it struggled to sustain its liberationist identity. |
| african methodist episcopal church history: The Doctrines and Discipline of the African Methodist Episcopal Church African Methodist Episcopal Church, 2017-05-01 Published in 1817, The Doctrines and Discipline of the African Methodist Episcopal Church was the first definitive guide to the history, beliefs, teachings, and practices of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Beginning with a brief history, the book moves into a presentation of the Articles of Religion, including the Trinity, the Word of God, Resurrection, the Holy Spirit, scripture, original sin and free will, justification, works, the church, purgatory, the sacraments, baptism, the Lord's Supper, marriage, church ceremonies, and government. Immediately following the articles is an extended four-part catechism that more fully explicates the meanings and implications of the doctrinal statements. A DOCSOUTH BOOK. This collaboration between UNC Press and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Library brings classic works from the digital library of Documenting the American South back into print. DocSouth Books uses the latest digital technologies to make these works available in paperback and e-book formats. Each book contains a short summary and is otherwise unaltered from the original publication. DocSouth Books provide affordable and easily accessible editions to a new generation of scholars, students, and general readers. |
| african methodist episcopal church history: History of the African Methodist Episcopal Church Daniel Alexander Payne, 1891 |
| african methodist episcopal church history: One Hundred Years of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church James Walker Hood, 1895 |
| african methodist episcopal church history: A History of the African Methodist Episcopal Church Charles Spencer Smith, Daniel Alexander Payne, 1922 |
| african methodist episcopal church history: The African Methodist Episcopal Church Dennis C. Dickerson, 2020-01-09 In this book, Dennis C. Dickerson examines the long history of the African Methodist Episcopal Church and its intersection with major social movements over more than two centuries. Beginning as a religious movement in the late eighteenth century, the African Methodist Episcopal Church developed as a freedom advocate for blacks in the Atlantic World. Governance of a proud black ecclesia often clashed with its commitment to and resources for fighting slavery, segregation, and colonialism, thus limiting the full realization of the church's emancipationist ethos. Dickerson recounts how this black institution nonetheless weathered the inexorable demands produced by the Civil War, two world wars, the civil rights movement, African decolonization, and women's empowerment, resulting in its global prominence in the contemporary world. His book also integrates the history of African Methodism within the broader historical landscape of American and African-American history. |
| african methodist episcopal church history: History of the African Methodist Episcopal Church Daniel Alexander Payne, 1969 For today's student of American Negro history there are important lessons to be learned from the remarkable History of the African Methodist Episcopal Church by Daniel A. Payne, one of the early pillars and scholars of this American-born denomination.--Preface by H.L. Moon |
| african methodist episcopal church history: Songs of Zion James T. Campbell, 1995-09-07 This is a study of the transplantation of a creed devised by and for African Americans--the African Methodist Episcopal Church--that was appropriated and transformed in a variety of South African contexts. Focusing on a transatlantic institution like the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the book studies the complex human and intellectual traffic that has bound African American and South African experience. It explores the development and growth of the African Methodist Episcopal Church both in South Africa and America, and the interaction between the two churches. This is a highly innovative work of comparative and religious history. Its linking of the United States and African black religious experiences is unique and makes it appealing to readers interested in religious history and black experience in both the United States and South Africa. |
| african methodist episcopal church history: Unwritten History Levi Jenkins Coppin, 1919 Autobiography of Levi Jenkins Coppins (1848-1924), Eastern Shore, Maryland-native, 'thirtieth bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, editor, and missonary.' After entering the ministry from Bethel A.M.E. Church in Wilmington, Delware, Coppin served in Baltimore and in Philadelphia where he became editor of the A.M.E. Church Review. In 1900, he was elected bishop, first serving in South African and later in the American South, Midwest, and in Canada. A concluding chapter concerns his personal life including his second marraige to Fanny Jackson Coppin (1837-1913), a long-time educator at Philadelphia's Institute for Colored Youth.--Description from Ian Brabner Rare Americana. |
| african methodist episcopal church history: The Christian Recorder, Newspaper of the African Methodist Episcopal Church Gilbert Anthony Williams, 1996 The Christian Recorder was first published in 1852 in Philadelphia. Although it was the official newspaper of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, it was much more than a religious weekly. In many ways, the Recorder became the voice of black America in the Reconstruction and the post-Reconstruction eras. From the pages of the Recorder, the positions of the AME Church and black leaders on civil rights, voting rights, politics, education, the African emigration movement, family, and women are analyzed in this unique work. |
| african methodist episcopal church history: Centennial Retrospect History of the African Methodist Episcopal Church John Thomas Jenifer, Booker T. Washington, 1915 |
| african methodist episcopal church history: The History of the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church in America Charles Henry Phillips, 1898 |
| african methodist episcopal church history: The Doctrine and Discipline of the African Methodist Episcopal Church African Methodist Episcopal Church, 2017-07 50th Quadrennial Session of the AME Church |
| african methodist episcopal church history: Black Milwaukee Joe William Trotter, 1985 Other historians have tended to treat black urban life mainly in relation to the ghetto experience, but in Black Milwaukee, Joe William Trotter Jr. offers a new perspective that complements yet also goes well beyond that approach. The blacks in Black Milwaukee were not only ghetto dwellers; they were also industrial workers. The process by which they achieved this status is the subject of Trotter's ground-breaking study. This second edition features a new preface and acknowledgments, an essay on African American urban history since 1985, a prologue on the antebellum and Civil War roots of Milwaukee's black community, and an epilogue on the post-World War II years and the impact of deindustrialization, all by the author. Brief essays by four of Trotter's colleagues--William P. Jones, Earl Lewis, Alison Isenberg, and Kimberly L. Phillips--assess the impact of the original Black Milwaukee on the study of African American urban history over the past twenty years. |
| african methodist episcopal church history: Race Patriotism Julius H. Bailey, 2012-05-30 Race Patriotism: Protest and Print Culture in the A.M.E. Church examines important nineteenth-century social issues through the lens of the AME Church and its publications. This book explores the ways in which leaders and laity constructed historical narratives around varied locations to sway public opinion of the day. Drawing on the official church newspaper, the Christian Recorder, and other denominational and rare major primary sources, Bailey goes beyond previously published works that focus solely on the founding era of the tradition or the eastern seaboard or post-bellum South to produce a work than breaks new historiographical ground by spanning the entirety of the nineteenth century and exploring new geographical terrain such as the American West. Through careful analysis of AME print culture, Bailey demonstrates that far from focusing solely on the “politics of uplift” and seeking to instill bourgeois social values in black society as other studies have suggested, black authors, intellectuals, and editors used institutional histories and other writings for activist purposes and reframed protest in new ways in the postbellum period. Adding significantly to the literature on the history of the book and reading in the nineteenth century, Bailey examines AME print culture as a key to understanding African American social reform recovering the voices of black religious leaders and writers to provide a more comprehensive and nuanced portrayal of the central debates and issues facing African Americans in the nineteenth century such as migration westward, selecting the appropriate referent for the race, Social Darwinism, and the viability of emigration to Africa. Scholars and students of religious studies, African American studies, American studies, history, and journalism will welcome this pioneering new study. Julius H. Bailey is the author of Around the Family Altar: Domesticity in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, 1865–1900. He is an associate professor in the Religious Studies Department at the University of Redlands in Redlands, California. |
| african methodist episcopal church history: The History of the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church in America Charles Henry Phillips, 2000 The Colored Methodist Episcopal (C.M.E.) Church's history from its founding in 1870 to its current activities and future prospects in 1925. Phillips uses the General Conferences of the C.M.E. Church as an organizing principle for his work, recounting important decisions and personages, and reprinting church documents relevant to Conference proceedings. He punctuates the continuous stream of historical events with interpretations of the significance of these events for the denomination. Pays special attention to conflicts between the C.M.E. Church, the African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Church, and the African Methodist Episcopal Zion (A.M.E.Z.) Church. He ends with a series of addresses against the union of the three churches. A comprehensive church history and impassioned argument for the distinctiveness and independence of the C.M.E. Church. |
| african methodist episcopal church history: Bishop Henry McNeal Turner and African-American Religion in the South Stephen Ward Angell, 1992 Henry McNeal Turner was an epoch-making man, as his colleague Reverdy Ransom called him. A bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal Church from 1880 to 1915, Turner was also a politician and Georgia legislator during Reconstruction, U.S. Army chaplain, newspaper editor, prohibition advocate, civil rights and back-to-Africa activist, African missionary, and early proponent of black theology. This richly detailed book, the first full-length critical biography of Turner, firmly places him alongside DuBois and Washington as a preeminent visionary of the postbellum African-American experience. The strength and vitality of today's black church tradition owes much to the herculean labors of pioneers such as Turner, one of the most skillful denominational builders in American history. When emancipation created the prerequisites for a strong national religious organization, Turner, with his boldness, charisma, political wisdom, eloquence, and energy, took full advantage of the opportunity. Combining evangelicalism with forthright agitation for racial freedom, he instigated the most momentous transformation in A.M.E. Church history--the mission to the South. Stephen Angell views Turner's advocacy of ordination for women and his missionary work in Africa as a further outgrowth of the bishop's deep evangelical commitment. The book's epilogue offers the first serious analysis of Turner's theology and his replies to racist distortions of the Christian message. |
| african methodist episcopal church history: A People's Guide to Greater Boston Joseph Nevins, Suren Moodliar, Eleni Macrakis, 2020 Herein, we bring you to sites that have been central to the lives of 'the people' of Greater Boston over four centuries. You'll visit sites associated with the area's indigenous inhabitants and with the individuals and movements who sought to abolish slavery, to end war, challenge militarism, and bring about a more peaceful world, to achieve racial equity, gender justice, and sexual liberation, and to secure the rights of workers. We take you to some well-known sites, but more often to ones far off the well-beaten path of the Freedom Trail, to places in Boston's outlying neighborhoods. We also visit sites in numerous other municipalities that make up the Greater Boston region-from places such as Lawrence, Lowell and Lynn to Concord and Plymouth. The sites to which we do 'travel' include homes given that people's struggles, activism, and organizing sometimes unfold, or are even birthed in many cases in living rooms and kitchens. Trying to capture a place as diverse and dynamic as Boston is highly challenging. (One could say that about any 'big' place.) We thus want to make clear that our goal is not to be comprehensive, or to 'do justice' to the region. Given the constraints of space and time as well as the limitations of knowledge--both our own and what is available in published form--there are many important sites, cities, and towns that we have not included. Thus, in exploring scores of sites across Boston and numerous municipalities, our modest goal is to paint a suggestive portrait of the greater urban area that highlights its long-contested nature. In many ways, we merely scratch the region's surface--or many surfaces--given the multiple layers that any one place embodies. In writing about Greater Boston as a place, we run the risk of suggesting that the city writ-large has some sort of essence. Indeed, the very notion of a particular place assumes intrinsic characteristics and an associated delimited space. After all, how can one distinguish one place from another if it has no uniqueness and is not geographically differentiated? Nonetheless, geographer Doreen Massey insists that we conceive of places as progressive, as flowing over the boundaries of any particular space, time, or society; in other words, we should see places as processual or ever-changing, as unbounded in that they shape and are shaped by other places and forces from without, and as having multiple identities. In exploring Greater Boston from many venues over 400 years, we embrace this approach. That said, we have to reconcile this with the need to delimit Greater Boston--for among other reasons, simply to be in a position to name it and thus distinguish it from elsewhere-- |
| african methodist episcopal church history: The History of the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church in America Charles Henry Phillips, 1925 |
| african methodist episcopal church history: Centennial Encyclopaedia of the African Methodist Episcopal Church Richard Robert Wright, 1916 |
| african methodist episcopal church history: Freedom's Prophet Richard S. Newman, 2008-03 Through exhaustive research and graceful writing, Newman shows all the sides of Richard Allen: activist, institution-builder of the AME church, theologian and writer, and pulpit politician. |
| african methodist episcopal church history: From Slavery to the Bishopric in the A. M. E. Church. an Autobiography William H. Heard, 2000-06-23 Every man in this life has a part to play, and, leaves a footprint, seen and followed by--some other. How well that part is played depends very largely on the man. It may be played loosely--carelessly--without a thought of anything but the NOW, the present; without any thought of its scope in reaching, touching, or influencing another's life. It is a footprint, nevertheless, and some one follows in it and is stunted in life, perhaps for life. On the other hand that part may be played with great care as to every detail, with much toil in preparation, with the thought ever in view that no man lives to himself alone, but that we are building character and making men, how careful, then must one be in the CHOICE and USE of the material that tends to the making men. |
| african methodist episcopal church history: Around the Family Altar Julius Bailey, 2005 Informative and controversial, this book explores the issue of domesticity in the 19th-century African Methodist Episcopal Church. For many in the church, their power to shape the dynamics of the family was the key to strengthening the spirit and role of African-Americans following the Civil War. In the midst of a hostile racial and political climate, black ministers and their congregations embraced Victorian notions of domesticity as a stabilizing force. Julius H. Bailey shows that they used the ideology to overcome regional tensions, restore families torn apart during slavery, challenge the legitimacy of female preachers, and nurture the spiritual growth of children and the religious life of the home. He also examines the ways male church leaders used the concept to defend their leadership, express hopes and fears, and fend off Social Darwinian attacks on their character. Discussions of domesticity helped African-Americans to understand the traits of a good father and mother, even as 19th-century ideas about the home were shifting. Were fathers to be stern heads of households or reclusive, prayerful figures who deferred to mothers? Were mothers natural nurturers? Or should they seek training to become domestic educators? For many of the diverse 19th-century black families, ministers of the AME church offered a universal familial philosophy that could bring harmony to the home. Using the voices of men and women and of clergy and laity and mining the principal publications of the AME church, Bailey presents a new understanding of family life in American religious history. |
| african methodist episcopal church history: Black Print Unbound Eric Gardner, 2015-08-06 Black Print Unbound explores the development of the Christian Recorder during and just after the American Civil War. As a study of the African Methodist Episcopal Church newspaper and so of a periodical with national reach among free African Americans, Black Print Unbound is at once a massive recovery effort of a publication by African Americans for African Americans, a consideration of the nexus of African Americanist inquiry and print culture studies, and an intervention in the study of literatures of the Civil War, faith communities, and periodicals. |
| african methodist episcopal church history: Annals of Philadelphia John Fanning Watson, 1830 |
| african methodist episcopal church history: History of Methodism in Arkansas Horace Jewell, 1892 |
| african methodist episcopal church history: Journal of Rev. Francis Asbury Francis Asbury, 1852 |
| african methodist episcopal church history: A. M. E. Hymnal African Methodist Episcopal, E. A. Selby, 2013-08 African Methodist Episcopal Church Hymnal. With Responsive Scripture Readings Adapted In Conformity With The Doctrines And Usages Of The African Methodist Episcopal Church. |
| african methodist episcopal church history: History of the African Methodist Episcopal Church Bishop Daniel Alexander Payne, 1968 |
| african methodist episcopal church history: The Bishops of the African Methodist Episcopal Church Richard Robert Wright, 1963 |
| african methodist episcopal church history: The Non-Sectarian , 1891 |
| african methodist episcopal church history: Black Los Angeles Darnell M. Hunt, Ana-Christina Ramón, 2010-04-29 Naráyana’s best-seller gives its reader much more than “Friendly Advice.” In one handy collection—closely related to the world-famous Pañcatantra or Five Discourses on Worldly Wisdom —numerous animal fables are interwoven with human stories, all designed to instruct wayward princes. Tales of canny procuresses compete with those of cunning crows and tigers. An intrusive ass is simply thrashed by his master, but the meddlesome monkey ends up with his testicles crushed. One prince manages to enjoy himself with a merchant’s wife with her husband’s consent, while another is kicked out of paradise by a painted image. This volume also contains the compact version of King Víkrama’s Adventures, thirty-two popular tales about a generous emperor, told by thirty-two statuettes adorning his lion-throne. Co-published by New York University Press and the JJC Foundation For more on this title and other titles in the Clay Sanskrit series, please visit http://www.claysanskritlibrary.org |
| african methodist episcopal church history: The Catechism of the A.M.E. Church Josephus Roosevelt Coan, 2020-12-20 |
| african methodist episcopal church history: The History of the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church in America Charles Henry Phillips, 1972 |
| african methodist episcopal church history: Journey of Hope Kenneth C. Barnes, 2005-10-12 Liberia was founded by the American Colonization Society (ACS) in the 1820s as an African refuge for free blacks and liberated American slaves. While interest in African migration waned after the Civil War, it roared back in the late nineteenth century with the rise of Jim Crow segregation and disfranchisement throughout the South. The back-to-Africa movement held great new appeal to the South's most marginalized citizens, rural African Americans. Nowhere was this interest in Liberia emigration greater than in Arkansas. More emigrants to Liberia left from Arkansas than any other state in the 1880s and 1890s. In Journey of Hope, Kenneth C. Barnes explains why so many black Arkansas sharecroppers dreamed of Africa and how their dreams of Liberia differed from the reality. This rich narrative also examines the role of poor black farmers in the creation of a black nationalist identity and the importance of the symbolism of an ancestral continent. Based on letters to the ACS and interviews of descendants of the emigrants in war-torn Liberia, this study captures the life of black sharecroppers in the late 1800s and their dreams of escaping to Africa. |
| african methodist episcopal church history: The Encyclopaedia of the African Methodist Episcopal Church Richard Robert Wright, 1947 Containing principally the biographies of the men and women, both ministers and laymen, whose labors during a hundred and sixty years, helped make the AME Church what it is; Also short historical sketches of Annual Conferences, educational institutions, General Departments, Missionary Societies of the AME Church, and general information about: historical, theological, sociological, legal and other matters concerning African Methodism and the Christian church in general. |
| african methodist episcopal church history: A Short History of Methodism John Wesley Boswell, 1901 |
| african methodist episcopal church history: History of St. Stephen African Methodist Episcopal Church James H. Bishop, 1993 |
| african methodist episcopal church history: The Ragged Ones Burke Davis, 1951 Novel covering the last years of the American Revolution. |
| african methodist episcopal church history: Bound for Freedom Douglas Flamming, 2005-01-24 A breakthough history of Los Angeles' black community in the half century before World War II. |
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