TOP STORY: AN HISTORIC BLACK CHURCH: An historic `Freedom Church’ marks two centuries of pain

c. 1996 Religion News Service NEW YORK _ There was a time in the Methodist Episcopal Church that black members had to wait until white congregants took Communion before they could approach the altar. Black preachers were given limited opportunities to speak _ occasionally to other blacks, never to whites. Even at baptisms, whites were […]

c. 1996 Religion News Service

NEW YORK _ There was a time in the Methodist Episcopal Church that black members had to wait until white congregants took Communion before they could approach the altar.

Black preachers were given limited opportunities to speak _ occasionally to other blacks, never to whites. Even at baptisms, whites were first in line and blacks were last.


And when it came to bestowing a name on the baby, sometimes it was the white preacher rather than the black parent who made the choice.

An historical volume titled”The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church: Reality of the Black Church”recounts a story of a woman, seated in the balcony with other black church members, who came forward for her child’s baptism:”A sister brought her child and presented it. When the minister said, `Name this child,’ the mother said, `George Washington.’ The minister looked at her for a moment as though she had been guilty of some great crime, and said,”George Washington, indeed! Caesar’s his name. Caesar, I baptise thee’. …” It was out of this context that the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church was born 200 years ago. As this historic”Freedom Church”celebrates its bicentennial, the little-known story of its history is being told.”In 1796, the black members of the John Street Methodist Episcopal Church became so dissatisfied with their treatment and the manner in which they were allowed to worship that they requested and received permission to hold separate services, apart from the white congregation,”notes an exhibit at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, a division of the New York Public Library.

The exhibit, which opened in October and continues through the end of the year, aims to highlight a segment of black history unknown to many. Located in Harlem, the Schomburg Center is just a block away from Mother AME Zion Church, the founding congregation of a denomination that now includes about 1.7 million members.

(The denomination, originally called the African Methodist Episcopal Church, added the word”Zion”to distinguish it from a group with the same name that was established earlier in Philadelphia in 1787 and now has about 3.5 million members.)

Although the denomination’s founder, James Varick, is not a household name, some other early members of the AME Zion Church are a veritable who’s who of black history.

The abolitionist Frederick Douglass was licensed as a local preacher in the denomination. Sojourner Truth, another abolitionist, was a member of the founding congregation. Harriet Tubman’s Underground Railroad had many”stations”in AME Zion churches and Tubman played an active role in the growth of the denomination in western New York state.”Frankly, the history of the church is not as widely known as it should be, in particular because there hasn’t been as much scholarship produced on the church as its history warrants,”said Howard Dodson, chief of the Schomburg Center, named for black scholar and bibliophile Arthur A. Schomburg.

Leading abolitionists in the denomination integrated their religious convictions with their work for racial justice.”They weren’t just members of the church,”explained Bishop J. Clinton Hoggard, historiographer of the AME Zion Church Bicentennial Commission.”They used the church as a platform on which they were able to enunciate so much of their concerns.” He cited the example of Sojourner Truth, a former slave who traveled throughout the North preaching against slavery and advocating temperance, women’s suffrage and better working conditions.”She used the church in New York as a place for her to give her witness and her declaration, not only on racism, but on feminism,”Hoggard said.”Their lives were not separate from the church.” Other members of the denomination, which incorporated in 1801, have been instrumental in establishing numerous schools, from church-owned institutes to Tuskegee University, a predominantly black school that focuses on science and technology.


Denominational leaders also were involved in the founding of the NAACP in 1910 and were actively involved in the 1955 bus boycott in Montgomery, Ala., that began when Rosa Parks, a black woman, refused to give up her seat to a white man.

Hoggard, whose collection of photographs, books and other documents was featured prominently in the Schomburg Center exhibit, said the church’s heritage remains important to its current members.”We have persons who have been members of the church, actively involved, for at least eight generations,”he said.”They appreciate the African-American heritage of free enterprise, self-help and crusading for human rights and social justice in a society where racism is exceedingly dominant.” For Sarah Webster and Marguerite C. Lewis, members of Mother AME Zion Church since the 1940s, it is the painful past as well as the triumphant feats of its members that fill them with pride. As the two women _ both in their 70s _ recently stood outside the center, where portions of the exhibit are featured in a window display, Lewis called out after a friend who otherwise would have walked by the windows without noticing.”Doris, this is our church!”Lewis exclaimed.

Webster explained their enthusiasm.”It makes you feel so proud,”she said,”… to see it come up like it did from a little nothin’ segregated church.” (STORY CAN END HERE. OPTIONAL MATERIAL FOLLOWS)

The denomination has emphasized education and mission work beyond the boundaries of the United States.”Members of the AME Zion (Church) have felt a responsibility not only to their African-American brethren and (sisters), but to the African people around the world,”said Dodson.

The Rev. Cecil Muschett, assistant minister of Mother AME Zion Church, joined the denomination two years after it was established in his native Jamaica. It grew so popular that the one annual conference was divided into three, he recalled.

His Harlem congregation, which draws visitors on bus tours for Sunday services each week, was full for a bicentennial celebration in mid-October.”We had people from every corner of the world,”said Muschett.


For some viewers of the Schomburg exhibit, a new sense of the heritage and the scope of the historic denomination may be emerging. One visitor said the displays at the Harlem center have encouraged him to find out more about the church when he makes his next visit to the library.”It seemed like an extraordinary group of people,”said Bernard Sargeant, a New York resident who learned about the exhibit from a friend.”I’m ashamed that I didn’t know … about this church.”

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