AFRICAN METHODIST EPISCOPAL ZION (AMEZ) CHURCH (1821- )

 CONTRIBUTED BY: SABRIANNA SGAMBELLURI

Mother African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, Harlem, October 18, 2006

Photo by Dennis, Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church is an historically African American Protestant denomination based in New York City, New York. Also known as the Freedom Church, the AMEZ was officially recognized in 1821, but the foundations for Zion’s founding began in the late 1700s.

In 1796, due to frequent acts of discrimination and segregation in white Methodist churches, many black parishioners left to form separate ministries. This exodus led to the creation of the AME Zion denomination which started as an informal meeting of multiple black-founded churches from various cities. The first church collectively run by the AMEZ, simply named Zion, was built in New York in 1800.

In 1820, after failing to maintain amiable connections to the predominantly white John Methodist Church, also based in New York, six of the African-American churches gathered for their annual conference to determine the future of the AMEZ. Among the church leaders was James Varick, a preacher who had been present since before the church’s founding and had encouraged the initial separation in 1796. At the 1820 summit, Varick was ordained as a church elder. In 1821, Varick became the AMEZ’s first bishop.

Between 1820 and 1860, the AMEZ grew to nearly 200,000 members spread across most Northern states. These numbers swelled during the Civil War as freedom came to the enslaved people of the ex-Confederate states which allowed them to establish AMEZ branches across the South.  Also, Northern AMEZ ministers and others traveled South following the war to actively help the newly freedpeople.

By the beginning of the 20th Century, the AMEZ church had become a leading African American church denomination, second only to the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) churches.  AMEZ, however challenged the standard protocols of both white and black denominations at the time.  For example, they were one of the first denominations to ordain women as ministers.  They also promoted women, putting them in positions of authority within the Church. By the 1950s and 1960s AMEZ church member contributed significantly to the Civil Rights Movement. Many of them joined peaceful protests and marches throughout the nation while church leaders opened their doors to allow civil rights planning meeting and rallies.

Today, the AMEZ Church’s mission continues to promote both the spiritual and socioeconomic uplifting of all people of African descent. The AMEZ Church claims over 1.4 million members in churches throughout the United States and has missionaries all over the world. It also has churches in west and southern Africa. As of 2012, the AMEZ Church entered a pact with other Methodist churches to transcend racial boundaries and encourage church unity. The Church currently runs six institutions of seminary learning, four on the East Coast of the United States and two in West Africa. It also sponsors scholarships for black students worldwide.

SAINT JAMES AFRICAN METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, HELENA, MONTANA (1888- )

CONTRIBUTED BY: WILLIAM LANG

When African American citizens founded the St. James African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in Helena, Montana, in 1888, their population topped 250 people in a city of roughly 12,000 souls. Located in Helena’s eastside residential district on 114 N. Hoback, the church building rested on a limestone foundation and featured a two-story steeple. Church members organized a Sabbath school, literary society, a women’s benevolent society, a theatrical troupe, a baseball team, and a band. It was the only African American church congregation in Helena, until 1910, when Baptists established a church.

It was part of the Colorado Conference of AME churches, which included congregations in Montana, Utah, New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming. St. James hosted the annual conference meeting in 1894, with pastor Rev. J.P. Watson welcoming pastors and congregants from Great Falls, Anaconda, and Butte in the state and dozens of out-of-state representatives. Northern Pacific Railroad offered a discounted fare for all AME representatives who attended the conference.

For more than four decades, St. James was the center of social and cultural life for African Americans in Helena. Nearly every important social, cultural, political, and self-help organization created by African Americans in Helena had its origin at St. James, including: Afro-American Building Association, to aid business development; Afro-American Benevolent Association, a Masonic group devoted to building a hall; and the Afro-American Protective League and the Afro-American Council, two groups focused on defending local people from discrimination and protesting lynchings in the American South. The St. James Literary Society reached well beyond the congregation and attracted whites to some public meetings, including one in 1907 that focused on the Brownsville Affair and debates on the effects of African American slavery, and the relative prosperity of African Americans who lived out of the South compared to populations in the South.

By the late 1920s, Helena’s African American population dwindled, the consequence of poor economic conditions. St. James continued as a congregation into the 1940s, but after World War II it ceased to function. The church building still stands. Remodeled without its steeple, it serves as a private residence.

OLE MISS RIOT (1962)

 CONTRIBUTED BY: MEGAN BRODSKY

On the evening of Sunday, September 30, 1962, Southern segregationistsrioted and fought state and federal forces on the campus of the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) in Oxford, Mississippi to prevent the enrollment of the first African American student to attend the university, James Meredith, a U.S. military veteran.

President John F. Kennedy had sent federal marshals to Oxford on Saturday, September 29, 1962 to prepare for protests he knew would arise from Meredith’s arrival and enrollment. While this occurred, Mississippi Governor Ross Barnett, a publicly avowed segregationist, spoke at an Ole Miss football game encouraging action on campus to block Meredith’s entry into the university. The next day, Meredith was escorted by Mississippi Highway Patrol as he made his way to the campus to move into his dorm room. He was greeted by 500 federal marshals assigned for his protection. Thousands of rioters from across the South gathered that evening at Ole Miss. The highway patrol tried to push back the crowd, but were dismissed by Mississippi Senator George Yarbrough at around 7:25 p.m. The crowd increased rapidly, and a full riot broke out at 7:30 p.m.

The crowd reached approximately three thousand rioters, led by former Army Major General Edwin Walker, who had recently been forced to retire when he was ordered to stop giving out racist hate literature to his troops but refused to do so. The crowd consisted of high school and college students, Ku Klux Klan members, Oxford residents, and people from outside the area.

By 9:00 p.m. the riot turned extremely violent. U.S. marshals who had been defending Meredith and university officials in the Lyceum building on campus, where Meredith registered, ran out of tear gas. Rioters threw rocks and bottles and began to shoot. President Kennedy then decided to bring in the Mississippi National Guard and Army troops from Memphis, Tennessee, during the middle of the night, led by Brigadier General Charles Billingslea.

Before their arrival, rioters learned of Meredith’s dorm hall, Baxter Hall, and began to attack it. When Billingslea and his men arrived, a white mob set his car on fire while he, the Deputy Commanding General John Corley, and aide Captain Harold Lyon were still inside. The three were able to escape but were forced to crawl 200 yards through gunfire from the mob to get to the Lyceum building. To try and keep control of the crowds, Billingslea created a sequence of secret code words to signal for first, when to issue ammunition to the platoons, second when to issue it to the squads, and finally when to load. None of these could occur without the codes given by Billingslea. This resulted in one third of the Marshals, totaling 166 men, were injured in the mass fight and 40 soldiers and National Guardsmen wounded.

Two men were murdered during the riot: French journalist Paul Guihard who was working for the Agence France-Presse, and 23-year-old Ray Gunter, a white jukebox repairman. In total, more than 300 people were injured. On October 1, 1962, the riot was suppressed with 3,000 soldiers stationed to occupy Oxford and the Ole Miss campus.  Meredith, escorted by U.S. Marshals, attended his first class at Ole Miss, an American history course.