Black Religious leaders
Below are short profiles of and links (when available) to some of
the early Black religious leaders in the United States, followed by a short description and
several links related to Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Below these are several links
to other sites, where you'll find a wealth of information about Black
History, including a timeline of significant events.
Richard Allen, 1760-1831
 Founder of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) denomination. Born a
slave Feb. 14, 1760, Philadelphia, PA; died
March 26, 1831, Philadelphia
With the permission of his master, Allen joined the Methodist Society
at age 17, learned to read and write and at 22 was allowed to preach at
Methodist meetings. After his conversion, Allen said that he worked even
harder for his master, in order to prove that religion did not make
slaves worse servants. At Allen's request, a Methodist meeting was held
in the master's home. The sermon that day was "Thou are weighed in
the balance and found wanting." His master converted to Methodism
and decided that slave holding was wrong. In January of 1780 Sturgis
agreed that Allen could hire himself out and purchase his freedom for
$2,000. In five years Allen had raised the money.
Allen preached at meetings to blacks and whites in Maryland,
Delaware, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. He was asked to
serve at St. George's Church in Philadelphia, where he quickly
increased black membership.
Richard Allen and Absalom Jones
organized the Free African Religious Society in 1787. Some five
years later, the black members of St. George's walked out when Absalom
Jones, who was kneeling in prayer at the front of the Church, was asked
to get up and move to the rear of the church. The Free African Society
took the lead in raising the money to create a church for the African
members of the congregation. "The African Church of
Philadelphia" became a part of the Protestant Episcopal Church
of America.
Richard Allen, along with eleven other members, were
committed to the principles of Methodism and formed the Bethel
African Church. By 1816 there were several African Methodist
Churches around the country and that year they met to form the African
Methodist Episcopal (AME) denomination. On April 11, 1816 Richard
Allen was named its first bishop.
Allen also operated businesses,
so he was able to serve the church without collecting a salary.
http://blackhistory.eb.com/micro/16/10.html
 Alexander Crummell, 1819-1898
Alexander Crummell was an American scholar, an Episcopalian minister,
and founder of the American Negro
Academy (1897), the first major learned society for black Americans. As a
religious leader and an intellectual, he cultivated scholarship and leadership
among young blacks. Alexander Crummell's
was a scholar, a college professor, a preacher, and an advocate of African self help.
Crummell, born to the son of an African prince and a free mother, attended
an interracial school at Canaan, N.H., then an institute in Whitesboro, N.Y.,
which was run by abolitionists. Alexander's father helped ensure his academic success by hiring
private tutors. When he was denied admission to the General Theological Seminary of the
Episcopal church in 1839 because of his race, Crummell studied theology
privately and became an ordained Episcopalian minister in the Diocese of
Massachusetts in 1844 at the age of 25. About four years later, he went to England to
raise funds for a church for poor blacks and soon began studies at Queen's College, Cambridge
(A.B., 1853).
After graduation, Crummell went to Liberia as a missionary,
spending
20 years there as a parish rector, a professor of intellectual and moral science
at Liberia College, and a public figure. Crummell hoped that Liberia would
establish a black Christian republic, combining the best of European and African
culture, and led by a Western-educated black bishop. However, Crummell was assaulted
on the streets of Monrovia, received assassination threats, and was betrayed by
people like Anthony F. Russell, who later became President of Liberia. President
J.J. Roberts did everything he could to make Crummell's life miserable,
including dismissing him from the professorship at Liberia College. Crummell
safely returned to the United States with his family shortly after the coup
d'etat of 1871.
In 1873 he returned to Washington DC, where he was appointed "missionary
at large of the colored people." His vision was that the black
church should be a place not only of worship but also of social service. In 1880 he
founded and served as the first pastor of
Saint Luke's Episcopal Church. Crummell took the lead in encouraging black
ministers in Washington to join together and establish charitable institutions
for their race. As a spokesperson for blacks looking for greater recognition in
the church, he led the Conference of Church Workers Among Colored People in
1883. When some bishops proposed a separate missionary district for black
parishes, he organized a group, now known as the Union of Black
Episcopalians, to fight the proposal.
After his 1894 retirement from the ministry, he taught at Howard University
(1895-97) and founded the American Negro Academy, which promoted the publication
of scholarly work dealing with African-American culture and history.
Crummell emphasized African-American self help and the need for education
that was solid and practical -- an idea he developed independent of Booker T.
Washington. Alexander Crummell's wanted to improve the moral, intellectual, economic,
and cultural conditions of black people.
Sources:
http://www.satucket.com/lectionary/Alex_Crummell.htm
http://www.brightmoments.com/blackhistory/ncrummel.html
http://blackhistory.eb.com/micro/727/79.html
 Father Augustus Tolton, 1854-1897
Augustus was born being regarded as the property of a slave owner. His
father fled to join the Union Army, then his mother escaped from
servitude, taking the children by boat across the Mississippi River to
Quincy, IL. Although prejudice forced him out of a parochial school after
one term, he was admitted to St. Peter's school, headed by Father Peter
McGirr, one of Quincy's first integrationists. Tolton showed an early
interest in religious matters and was a good student, graduating from St.
Peters with distinction.
At St. Francis College, Tolton showed promise as a potential candidate
for the priesthood, but efforts by local priests to place him in U.S.
seminaries proved futile because of his race. Finally, Tolton was
admitted as a priest candidate at the College of Sacred Propaganda in Rome
in March, 1880. After six years of intensive study, Tolton was ordained on
April 24, 1886 and became the first U.S. black priest. On July 25th
of that year, he was installed as pastor of Quincy's St. Joseph Church, a
black congregation. Father Tolton became known for his excellent sermons
and attracted many blacks and whites to his church. Read more at: http://quincy.edu/tolton/
Augustus Tolton, America's first Black Catholic Priest!
Father Augustus Tolton
Father Augustus
Tolton: leading the way so that others may follow
 Henry McNeal Turner,
1834-1915
 Henry McNeal Turner is best as one of the first Bishops of the
African American Episcopal Church. But he was also an Army
chaplain, a political organizer, a magazine editor, a college chancellor, and a preacher. During reconstruction he
worked with Georgia politicians, hoping he could help improve life for 19th century Georgia
blacks.
During his political career Turner introduced bills
for higher education for blacks and for the creation of a Black militia to
protect blacks from the atrocities of the Klu Klux Klan. He also introduced a bill to give
women the right to vote. For twelve years he served as chancellor of Morris
Brown College (now Morris Brown University) in Atlanta.
As a theologian, Turner spent much of his time explaining the
relationship between God, history, and the struggle of black people in America. He told blacks to
reject claims that they were inferior.
Turner believed that the black church had a key role in developing racial pride
and consciousness among the millions of blacks. Turner played a major role in the
introduction of the African Methodist Episcopal Church into South Africa.
Bishop Henry McNeal Turner's funeral was attended by 25,000 people, including many
dignitaries.
Text of the monument
to Bishop Henry McNeal Turner in downtown Savannah:
1834-1915
Henry McNeal Turner was the first Black Chaplain of the U.S. Army. He was
appointed by President Lincoln in 1863.
In 1865, he was assigned an agent of the Freedmen’s Bureau in Georgia.
He served in the Georgia House of Representatives from 1868-1870; and at one
time was postmaster of Macon.
Turner served as pastor of St. Phillips A.M.E. Church in Savannah (now known
at St. Philip Monumental A.M.E. Church) from 1870-1874. St. Philip Monumental,
the “Mother Church of African Methodism in Georgia”, was organized on this
site, June 16, 1865.
He was elected Bishop of Georgia in 1880. Bishop Turner was prominent in
the back-to-Africa movement, leading two expeditions from the Port of Savannah
in the 1890’s.
He was a pioneer in the establishment and expansion of missionary work in
Africa.
"We should let our godliness exhale like the odor of flowers. We should
live for the good of our kind, and strive for the salvation of the world."
-- Henry McNeal Turner
Bio,
plus some papers written by Bishop Turner (UNC Chapel Hill)
Henry
McNeal Turner (PBS "This far by faith" series)
Profile of
Bishop Henry McNeal Turner (by Turner Chapel AME)
 Rev.
Dr. Adam Clayton Powell, Sr., 1865-1953
Born in Soak Creek, Virginia, Powell is remembered as the social and
religious leader of Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem. Segregation in a
white Baptist church led Ethiopian merchants and one white man to found
this church in 1808. New York's oldest remaining African American
church is named after ancient Ethiopia. Powerful civil rights leaders
Samuel Proctor, Adam Clayton Powell, Sr. and Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. held
the pulpit.
Spiritual charisma, Adam Clayton Powell, Sr.
Glory Days - Adam Clayton Powell, Sr.
Baptising a church
member at the River Jordan
Black Social
Gospel - Adam Clayton Powell ,Sr.
Rev. Dr. Mordecai Johnson,
1890-1976
Clergyman/administrator. Dr.
Mordecai Johnson, was the first Black to graduate from the local divinity
school in Rochester, New York, and went on to be the head of Howard
University.
Johnson had begun his education in the preparatory
department at Atlanta Baptist College, taken his bachelor's degree at the
University of Chicago, studied for the ministry at Harvard and Rochester
Theological Seminary, and sandwiched in two years of teaching at Morehouse
College, the new name for AtlMarch 7, 2008 11:45 PMrofessor of English at
Morehouse College and from 1912-13, a professor of the Social Sciences at
Morehouse College. Later, he served as secretary of the Student Department
of the International Committee of Young Men's Christian Associations. From
1917 to 1923 he was the pastor of the First Baptist Church, Charleston,
West Virginia.
In 1926, at the age of thirty-six, Johnson was appointed
the first black president of the all-black Howard University, in
Washington, D.C. He raised faculty salaries and academic standards,
toughened admission requirements, and insisted on a crash program to have
the graduate and professional schools accredited. When Johnson first
arrived at Howard University, it was composed of 8 unaccredited
schools and colleges, had a total enrollment of 1,700, and a budget of
$700,000. At his retirement 34 years later, Howard University had 10
nationally accredited schools and colleges, 6,000 students, and a budget
of $8 million.
Dr. Johnson also asked the black theologian Howard Thurman
to develop a religious program at Howard that would match the excellence
of the school's other academic emphases.
In 1938, a New York State commission studying
discrimination held hearings in Rochester. He returned to Rochester to
take it to task for allowing racism to invade its school system and to
pervade its commercial establishments.
Black Social
Gospel - Mordecai W. Johnson
Educator Mordecai Johnson influenced MLK Jr.
Mordecai
Johnson (BlackWebPortal)
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., 1929-1968
 Born in Jan. 15, 1929; died April 4, 1968. Time
Magazine listed him in the top
100 people of the century, describing him as one of the many important
leaders and revolutionaries of the 20th century.
In 1948 he was ordained
as a Baptist minister. In January, 1957 the Southern Christian Leadership
Conference was founded and Dr. King chosen president.
In 1949, he attended a lecture by Dr. Mordecai Johnson on
the life of Mahatma Gandhi and was inspired to delve deeper in the Indian
social philosopher's teachings. In February, 1959,
Dr. King and his wife, Coretta Scott King, visited India. There they
studied Mahatma
Gandhi's methods of nonviolent protest. In January, 1960, the King family
moved to Atlanta, where Martin Luther King became co-pastor of the
Ebenezer Baptist Church with his father, Martin Luther King, Sr.
On
October 19, 1960, Dr. King was jailed after being arrested at a sit-in at a
lunch counter in Atlanta. On April 12, 1963, he was arrested and
jailed (for the thirteenth time) during a march in Birmingham, Alabama.
[Read his letter
from the Birmingham jail].
“We have learned to fly the air like birds and swim the
sea like fish, but we have not yet learned the simple art of
living together as brothers.”
-- Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King |
 On August 28, 1963, 250,000 people
demonstrated in Washington, D.C., in support of civil rights. Dr. King
met with President John F. Kennedy and also delivered his famous I
have a dream speech.
In December, 1964, he won the Nobel Peace
Prize. [Read his acceptance
speech. (An Adobe Acrobat PDF file)] In March, 1965, Dr. King and the SCLC
began a voter
registration campaign in Alabama. As a direct result of the persistent and
selfless work of King and his ardent supporters, President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act was
signed into law on August, 1965.
After
passage of civil rights acts in 1964 and 1965, Dr. King began challenging
the country's basic priorities. He stressed that civil rights laws were
empty without "human rights", including economic rights. By
1967, he had also become the country's most prominent opponent of the
Vietnam War. In his last months, King was organizing a major project
-- the Poor People's Campaign. [Read
more about the period 1965-1968.]
On April 3, 1968, King delivered his last speech, "I've
been to the mountaintop speech". On April 4, 1968, Rev. Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot and killed at the Lorraine Motel in
Memphis.
[You might also want to read Robert
Kennedy's speech on the death of Martin Luther King, Jr. and "The
unfinished agenda of Martin Luther King Jr."]
"You
know, only three Americans have ever had a holiday named for them by the
Congress. Two were presidents -- George Washington helped to create our
union; Abraham Lincoln laid down his life to preserve it; Martin Luther
King never held any elected office. But he is the third because he
redeemed the moral purpose of the United States. He reminded us that since
all of us are created equal -- and that's what the Constitution says --
all of us are equally entitled to the full benefits of American
citizenship." -- President Clinton, Jan. 15, 1996.
Links
to other sites' resources |
Black History - general
African-American
history (MSN Encarta Enclopedia)
African American
missionaries (UNC Chapel Hill)
The
African-American Journey (PBS)
The
African-American Mosaic (a Library of Congress Resource)
Black
History Gallery
Black
History Month (Christianity Today online)
Black
History Month - history & lots of links (Family Education.com)
Black
History Month (Knoxville News)
Black History Month (Gale Group)
Black
History - quiz
Celebrating
Black History Month
"The Church in the Southern Black Community" (UNC Chapel Hill)
Encyclopedia
Britannica Guide to Black History
"The History of the Negro Church" (UNC Chapel Hill)
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr
Biography
of Martin Luther King, Jr (MSN Encarta Enclopedia)
Chasing
the Dream (CNN fyi)
The
Civil Rights Act of 1964 (PBS)
A
conversation with Rev. Bernice King (PBS)
Extensive
collection of Martin Luther King, Jr. Resources (The Seattle
Times)
Innovators
who break barriers (CNN fyi)
The
King Center
MLK
links
Martin Luther
King and the Preaching Tradition (NPR)
LBJ's
Address to Congress: We shall overcome (PBS)
Martin
Luther King, Jr. quotes - small collection
Martin
Luther King, Jr (Microsoft Encarta Africana)
The
Martin Luther King, Jr. Papers Project (Stanford Univ.)
Photobiography of Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (Microsoft Encarta Africana)
Photos
of Martin Luther King, Jr. (Time) |
