By Spessard Stone
Central to the black experience in America has been Christianity, as adapted by African Americans in its churches, which served not only to win souls to Christ, but as a cultural, educational, and political institution.
The history of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Florida from its genesis to the late 1890s is chronicled by Larry E. Rivers and Canter Brown, Jr. in Laborers In The Vineyard Of The Lord The Beginnings of the AME Church in Florida, 1865-1895.
The roots of black Methodism in Florida had originated in St. Augustine in 1823 when a Methodist missionary founded a 52-member mission, of whom 40 were free blacks and slaves. Its greatest inroads, however, came in the slave plantations of Middle Florida, where missionaries reached an accommodation with slavery, which culminated when the Florida church joined its sister southern churches in schism in 1845 with the formation of the Methodist Episcopal Church South.
Even in the more flexible Baptist churches, the bondsmen were believers without real church membership. Methodists and Baptists alike chaffed under preachers who too often stressed obedience rather than Jesus; subsequently, many slaves formed their own secret fellowships while others in the traditional church created a “new faith,” marked by their African heritage and a high level of emotionalism.
Secession and civil war completed the alienation of black parishioners from the Methodist Church. In 1860, 8,110 blacks constituted forty-two percent of the Florida church’s membership. By war’s end in 1865, though, half the members had formed their own churches.
With peace came African Methodism to Florida. In Charleston, South Carolina in May 1865, Bishop Daniel A. Payne and associates of the African Methodist Episcopal Church organized the South Carolina Conference, which included Florida, and in June dispatched William G. Stewart, a deacon, as pastor to Florida.
At Midway, near Jacksonville, Rev. Stewart organized the first AME church in Florida, “Mother Midway,” and then at the invitation of Henry W. Call journeyed to Jackson County and thence onto other Middle Florida counties, which proved a fertile missionary field with many esteemed preachers, e.g., Robert Meacham, Thomas W. Long, and Dennis Wood.
In February 1866, Bishop Payne replaced Stewart with Elder Charles H. Pearce. Presiding from Tallahassee’s Bethel AME Church, “Bishop” Pearce, like his mentor, favored an activist church role with an emphasis on education, not only in Sunday schools, but also public schools, and under his stewardship the church blossomed.
During Reconstruction, AME Church members, loyal Republicans, assumed a militant stance, held numerous public offices, and guided into law major educational and civil rights statutes. In the process, however, the church became involved with the political infighting . Their interactions with the various political intrigues and factions, including Governor Harrison Reed, the Osborn Ring, their rivalry with black Baptists, the “Mule Team,” and Governor Ossian B. Hart, are clearly and concisely explained.
Even before Redemption (Democrats’ takeover from Republicans), Bishop Ward in 1873 had criticized political preachers and displaced the activist Pearce. Ward and others advocated that moral issues, including temperance, tobacco use, and education, deserved priority over governmental ones. After 1876, the church turned sharply inward. As repressive measures increased, the church found itself with few options.
Changing economic conditions, including railroad construction, led to a decline in membership in the Panhandle, and growth in east, central, and south Florida, resulting in two new conferences in 1878 and 1892.
Throughout its existence, the AME’s members had suffered disproportionately in the various economic and natural disasters of the state, but the depression from 1893-1895, compounded by the Great Freeze of 1895, was devastating.
The AME Church and African Americans reacted with pragmatism, with the art of the possible supplanting the days when possibilities seemed unlimited. A nadir in race relations ensued, but those toiling in the vineyard would eventually reap better times.
Laborers In The Vineyard Of The Lord is an insightful history of the courageous stewardship of the men and women of an influential church in a critical time by two of the most prominent historians of African Americans in Florida. Well done, good and faithful servants!
Laborers In The Vineyard Of The Lord contains 265 pages, 59 black and white photographs, 2 maps, notes, bibliography, and index. It can be ordered for $34.95, plus $3.75 for postage and handling charges, and appropriate sales tax from University Press of Florida, 15 NW 15th St., Gainesville, FL 32611-2079. Their web site is: University of Florida Press
I received Laborers In The Vineyard Of The Lord from Canter Brown, Jr. on April 13, 2001. This review was posted to Cracker Barrel on April 19, 2001 and published in The Herald-Advocate (Wauchula, Fla.) of May 10, 2001.
May 11, 2001