The history of Florida’s African Methodist Episcopal Zion (AMEZ) Church in its formative years is chronicled by Canter Brown, Jr., and Larry E. Rivers in For a Great and Grand Purpose: The Beginnings of the AMEZ Church in Florida, 1864-1905

The AMEZ Church originated in 1796 when a committee of African Methodists in New York City received permission to meet separately from the church’s white members. Subsequently, in 1801 there came into being the African Methodist Episcopal Church of the City of New York, which became known as the Zion Church after other African Methodist churches convened in 1816 to create the separate African Methodist Episcopal Church.

In 1820-21 several area congregations withdrew from the white-controlled Methodist church as the African Methodist Episcopal Church in America, which in 1848 was renamed as the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. Fervent against slavery, Zion Church by 1860 had sixty-four churches and 4,600 members in eleven states.

The withdrawal of the blacks from the white Methodist Church, a process began during the Civil War and completed afterwards, provided a rich missionary field to the two African Methodist churches. Zion could not, however, compete with the larger AME with over 20,000 adherents. A union of the two in 1864 was proposed but was not realized.

AMEZ Superintendent Joseph J. Clinton responded to the opportunity in the South by first sending James Walker Hood to New Bern, North Carolina where he organized the first southern congregation in early 1864.

At Key West, the lay work of two black men, Sandy Cornish and Cataline B. Simmons, had provided another opportunity, to which Clinton responded by dispatching Wilbur Garrison Strong, and in November 1864 he organized Cornish Chapel, the first Zion church in Florida.

The Florida Conference of the AMEZ Church was organized on April 22, 1869 at Pensacola. A small church, it then had only 348 members in Escambia, Santa Rosa, Hillsborough, Polk, and Monroe counties, concentrated predominantly in the larger towns. In 1902 Zion would only have 3,252 members in two conferences.

In contrast to the AME and black Baptists, the AMEZ ministers mostly declined to seek public offices and thus never achieved the political power the others did. Rather they concentrated on their communities, i.e., schools and social services. They advocated strong moral and spiritual codes of conduct, especially temperance, and led by example.

Due to various factors, Zion women assumed a more influential role than in their sister churches. The church, by century’s end, would emerge as a leader in ordaining women.

The hand of man and God lay heavily among the AMEZ family. Detailed are the factors affecting the church while overlayed against the overwhelming challenges it confronted amidst the post-Civil War era, including Reconstruction, Redemption, Jim Crow, and economic challenges, when pride was expressed simply by stating that Zion still lived.

In conclusion, the AMEZ Church, though small, exhibited with courage and grace a vital role in meeting the spiritual needs of many black Floridians. Its history is one of triumph of the human spirit against great difficulties.

For a Great and Grand Purpose contains 270 pages, with 55 illustrations, appendices, notes, bibliography, and index. It is published by University Press of Florida, University of Florida Press



Note: I received For a Great and Grand Purpose: The Beginnings of the AMEZ Church in Florida, 1864-1905 from Canter Brown, Jr. on September 30, 2004. This review was posted to Cracker Barrel on October 3, 2004. This review was published in The Herald-Advocate (Wauchula, Florida), 6D, October 21, 2004.