The AME Zion Church celebrates its bicentennial

Ebony, Oct, 1996 by Lisa Jones Townsel

THEY didn't ask for much, just to be fully included in the service of the Lord. But in the beginning of the American experience, Black Methodists--some slaves, some freemen--were denied that basic religious freedom.

Tired of the restraints and paternalistic treatment of the White mother church, about 100 Black Methodists from the mostly White John Street Methodist Episcopal Church decided to break away.

"The fathers agreed that they had no fault to find with the doctrines . . . but they could not endure the constant humiliation and restrictions imposed by the people into whose hands Methodism had fallen," wrote the late author and AME Zion Bishop William J. Walls in the denomination's definitive history book, The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church: Reality of the Black Church.

After months of holding private meetings at the home of James Varick, the itinerant shoemaker and schoolteacher who would later become known as the denomination's founder and first bishop, Black Methodists met again with White church leaders in August 1796 and received approval to hold separate meetings.

The group's worship services were held in an old, rented house on Cross Street in New York City. Their actions, some have said, proved to be "a bold stroke for religious and race freedoms."

Officially born October 1796, the new Black denomination was chartered in 1801 and firmly established in 1820 when the leaders voted themselves out of the White Methodist Episcopal Church. The next year, church founders agreed to call the church the African Methodist Episcopal Church in America. But to distinguish this New York-based group from the Philadelphia Black Methodist movement which emerged about the same time, the word "Zion" was added to the title during the church's general conference in 1848.

With its identity problems resolved, the AME Zion Church made the salvation of the whole person--mind, body and spirit--its top priority. At the crux of its ministry lay racial justice, peace and harmony, thus earning it the title, the Freedom Church.

For the past 200 years, the AME Zion Church has attracted an impressive following. Along with such heroes as Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman, it also has been the spiritual home to the legendary Paul Robeson, Cleveland Mayor Carl Stokes and Dr. Selma Burke, who was commissioned by Congress to sculpture the head of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, which is engraved on the silver dime.

Today, the roster of the AME Zion Church includes the names of dignitaries in the arts, the sciences, business and politics. Renowned singer Roberta Flack grew up in the WE Zion Church. So did country star Charlie Pride. Rep. Louis Stokes, D-Ohio, still worships in the AME Zion Church of his youth. And rising gospel star William Becton and Dorothy Edwards Brunson, the first African-American woman to own a TV and radio station, are also longtime members.

All in all, the AME Zion Church of today is 1.5 million strong, with members throughout the U.S., Europe, South America, the West Indies, Africa, Asia and the Caribbean. There are more than 6,000 churches and 6,275 ordained clergy in 12 districts worldwide. A board of 12 active bishops governs the denomination in between the church's quadrennial general conference meetings, which are made up of bishops, general officers, lay and clergy delegates who serve as the supreme authority for the AME Zion Church.

The year 1996 not only marks the AME Zion's bicentennial, but the year of a general conference as well. To commemorate the denomination's general conference, more than 15,000 members convened in Washington, D.C., in July. The conference marked just one of the many events leading up to this month's grand bicentennial celebration held in New York City, where the church got its humble start. A commission was set in place eight years ago to plan the extravaganza, which featured noted guests, lively concerts and spirited speakers. The celebration also included an extensive exhibit of denominational archives at New York's Schomburg Center for Research and Black Culture.

How did a church that began with a few members who worshiped in a rented old house grow into one that boasts millions of members here and abroad? "I think one has to reflect on the strength and fiber of our forefathers and foremothers who conceived of this denomination," says Dr. Thaddeus Garrett Jr., an AME Zion minister, chairman of the Howard University board of trustees and past assistant to Presidents Bush, Reagan and Ford. "The thing that I find most revealing about the content of Black Christian character is perseverance. We [AME Zion members] have strength and history on our side. And it occurs to me that we must be doing something right to have existed in America for 200 years."

Seemingly, the AME Zion Church has been in a perpetual state of growth since its infancy. Once the denomination was firmly established in the early 1800s, it continued to spread to the Northern states and upward into Canada. After the Civil War, the church expanded into the South and farther West. And it eventually established missions overseas, beginning in 1876.