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The
History
Of the
African
Methodist
Episcopal
Church
Richard
Allen
Sara
Allen
The
African
Methodist
Episcopal
Church
grew out
of the
Free
African
Society
(FAS)
which
Richard
Allen,
Absalom
Jones,
and
others
established
in
Philadelphia
in 1787.
When
officials
at St.
George’s
MEC
pulled
blacks
off
their
knees
while
praying,
FAS
members
discovered
just how
far
American
Methodists
would go
to
enforce
racial
discrimination
against
African
Americans.
Hence,
these
members
of St.
George’s
made
plans to
transform
their
mutual
aid
society
into an
African
congregation.
Although
most
wanted
to
affiliate
with the
Protestant
Episcopal
Church,
Allen
led a
small
group
who
resolved
to
remain
Methodists.
In 1794
Bethel
AME was
dedicated
with
Allen as
pastor.
To
establish
Bethel’s
independence
from
interfering
white
Methodists,
Allen, a
former
Delaware
slave,
successfully
sued in
the
Pennsylvania
courts
in 1807
and 1815
for the
right of
his
congregation
to exist
as an
independent
institution.
Because
black
Methodists
in other
middle
Atlantic
communities
encountered
racism
and
desired
religious
autonomy,
Allen
called
them to
meet in
Philadelphia
to form
a new
Wesleyan
denomination,
the AME.
The
geographical
spread
of the
AMEC
prior to
the
Civil
War was
mainly
restricted
to the
Northeast
and
Midwest.
Major
congregations
were
established
in
Philadelphia
, New
York ,
Boston ,
Pittsburgh
,
Baltimore,
Washington
, DC,
Cincinnati
,
Chicago
,
Detroit
, and
other
large
cities.
Numerous
northern
communities
also
gained a
substantial
AME
presence.
Remarkably,
the
slave
states
of
Maryland
,
Kentucky
,
Missouri
,
Louisiana
, and,
for a
few
years,
South
Carolina
, became
additional
locations
for AME
congregations.
The
denomination
reached
the
Pacific
Coast in
the
early
1850’s
with
churches
in
Stockton
,
Sacramento
, San
Francisco
, and
other
places
in
California.
Moreover,
Bishop
Morris
Brown
established
the
Canada
Annual
Conference.
The most
significant
era of
denominational
development
occurred
during
the
Civil
War and
Reconstruction.
Oftentimes,
with the
permission
of Union
army
officials
AME
clergy
moved
into the
states
of the
collapsing
Confederacy
to pull
newly
freed
slaves
into
their
denomination.
“I Seek
My
Brethren,”
the
title of
an often
repeated
sermon
that
Theophilus
G.
Steward
preached
in South
Carolina,
became a
clarion
call to
evangelize
fellow
blacks
in
Georgia,
Florida,
Alabama,
Texas,
and many
other
parts of
the
south.
Hence,
in 1880
AME
membership
reached
400,000
because
of its
rapid
spread
below
the
Mason-Dixon
line .
When
Bishop
Henry
M.
Turner
pushed
African
Methodism
across
the
Atlantic
into
Liberia
and
Sierra
Leone in
1891 and
into
South
Africa
in 1896,
the AME
now laid
claim to
adherents
on two
continents.
While
the AME
is
doctrinally
Methodist,
clergy,
scholars,
and lay
persons
have
written
important
works
which
demonstrate
the
distinctive
theology
and
praxis
which
have
defined
this
Wesleyan
body.
Bishop
Benjamin
W.
Arnett,
in an
address
to the
1893
World’s
Parliament
of
Religions,
reminded
the
audience
of the
presence
of
blacks
in the
formation
of
Christianity.
Bishop
Benjamin
T.
Tanner
wrote in
1895 in
The
Color of
Solomon
– What?
that
biblical
scholars
wrongly
portrayed
the son
of David
as a
white
man.
In the
post
civil
rights
era
theologians
James
H. Cone,
Cecil W.
Cone,
and
Jacqueline
Grant
who came
out of
the AME
tradition
critiqued
Euro-centric
Christianity
and
African
American
churches
for
their
shortcomings
in fully
impacting
the
plight
of those
oppressed
by
racism,
sexism,
and
economic
disadvantage.
In the
1990s,
the AME
included
over
2,000,000
members,
8000
ministers,
and 7000
congregations
in more
than 30
nations
in North
and
South
America
, Africa
, and
Europe.
Twenty
bishops
and 12
general
officers
comprised
the
leadership
of the
denomination.
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