Black History Appreciation!!!

[Deadpool1986]

February 3 - Six time All-Star Bill White was named president of National League IN 1989. Former Saint Louis Cardinals first baseman Bill White is named president of the National League. He is the first African American to head a major sports league. On February 3, 1903; Jack Johnson became the first Negro Heavyweight Champion, The Negro Baseball League founded in 1920.

 

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Jeanine McIntosh Menze is a United States Coast Guard officer. She holds the distinction of becoming the first African-American female in the U.S. Coast Guard to earn the Coast Guard Aviation designation.[1]

At the time of her graduation, she was the first African-American female aviator in the history of the U.S. Coast Guard.

Early life and education
McIntosh was born in Kingston, Jamaica. After graduating from Florida International University in 2001, she decided to pursue her dream of flying, taking flying lessons at North Perry Airport in Pembroke Pines (Broward County, Florida).

Menzie attended Vaz Preparatory School in Kingston, Jamaica.[2] Her family moved to Canada before relocating to South Florida. where she graduated from Miami Killian High School in May 1997 and Florida International University in May 2001 with an international business degree.[2] She also served as a flight instructor at Opa-locka Airport in North Miami.

Career
Menze joined the U.S. Coast Guard in 2003 after graduation from the Coast Guard Officer Candidate School.

She began Coast Guard aviation training at Naval Air Station Corpus Christi, Texas in January 2005. She earned her aviator wings on June 24, 2005 and was assigned to fly HC-130 Hercules aircraft out of Air Station Barbers Point, Hawaii.

After graduation she served as a pilot of the HC-130 Hercules airplanes and flew rescue missions for the U.S. Coast Guard in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina.

As of 2010, Menze holds the rank of Lieutenant.

 

[Deadpool1986]

Little Known Black History Fact: Vice Admiral Michelle Howard

On December 20, 2013, the Senate confirmed African American Vice Admiral Michelle Howard as the U.S. Navy’s first ever female four-star admiral. Howard is not only the first woman but the first black person to be named the Navy’s new Vice Chief of Naval Operations. Vice Admiral Howard began making history in 1999 when she took charge of the USS Rushmore. She was the first black woman to command a naval ship.

The Annapolis native received her Military Arts and Sciences from the Army’s Command and General Staff College in 1998. She has survived life-threatening challenges, including time served in Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm. She is also a survivor of the September 11th attack on the U.S. Pentagon. She was inside the building when the commercial airplane hit. As she rose through the ranks of the Navy, the Vice Admiral faced some discrimination from those who didn’t believe she was capable of accomplishing all of the tasks, of which she has proven, time and again, to succeed.

In 2009, Howard led a U.S. command warship against Somali pirates in the Arabian Sea. Task Force 151 became a rescue mission for Richard Phillips, the captain of the Maersk Alabama, who was taken hostage on the ship’s lifeboat. It was up to Vice Admiral Michele Howard to save the captain before the boat hit shore. She, along with the assistance of Navy SEALS, captured the ship, killing all but one of the pirates and bringing the captain out safely. Her voice is depicted in the film “Captain Phillips,” starring Tom Hanks, which relives the task force mission.

Vice Admiral Michelle Howard will report directly to Chief Naval Officer Admiral Jonathan Greenert.

 

[Deadpool1986]

Black History Little Known Facts

Fact #6

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Before Wally Amos became famous for his "Famous Amos" chocolate chip cookies, he was a talent agent at the William Morris Agency, where he worked with the likes of the Supremes and Simon & Garfunkel.

Fact #7

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Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated on friend Maya Angelou's birthday, on April 5, 1968. Angelou stopped celebrating her birthday for years afterward, and sent flowers to King's widow, Coretta Scott King, for more than 30 years, until Coretta's death in 2006.

Fact #8

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Louis Armstrong learned how to play the cornet while living at the Colored Waif's Home for Boys.

Fact #9
Musician Louis Armstrong earned the nickname "Satchmo" which was a shortened version of the moniker "satchel mouth."

Fact #10

After a long career as an actress and singer, Pearl Bailey earned a bachelor's degree in theology from Georgetown University in 1985.

 

[Im Kemet Rocky & I like penis]

Chuck Berry

A pioneer of rock music, Berry was a significant influence on the development of both the music and the attitude associated with the rock music lifestyle. With songs such as "Maybellene" (1955), "Roll Over Beethoven" (1956), "Rock and Roll Music" (1957) and "Johnny B. Goode" (1958), Chuck Berry refined and developed rhythm and blues into the major elements that made rock and roll distinctive, with lyrics successfully aimed to appeal to the early teenage market by using graphic and humorous descriptions of teen dances, fast cars, high-school life, and consumer culture,and utilizing guitar solos and showmanship that would be a major influence on subsequent rock music. His records are a rich storehouse of the essential lyrical, showmanship and musical components of rock and roll; and, in addition to the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, a large number of significant popular-music performers have recorded Berry's songs.Though not technically accomplished, his guitar style is distinctive — he incorporated electronic effects to mimic the sound of bottleneck blues guitarists, and drew on the influence of guitar players such as Charlie Christian and T-Bone Walker to produce a clear and exciting sound that many later guitar musicians would acknowledge as a major influence in their own style. Berry's showmanship has been influential on other rock guitar players, particularly his one-legged hop routine, and the "duck walk", which he first used as a child when he walked "stooping with full-bended knees, but with my back and head vertical" under a table to retrieve a ball and his family found it entertaining; he used it when "performing in New York for the first time and some journalist branded it the duck walk."

The rock critic Robert Christgau considers him "the greatest of the rock and rollers," while John Lennon said that "if you tried to give rock and roll another name, you might call it 'Chuck Berry'." Ted Nugent said "If you don't know every Chuck Berry lick, you can't play rock guitar."[ Among the honors he has received, have been the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1984, the Kennedy Center Honors in 2000, and being named seventh on Time magazine's 2009 list of the 10 best electric guitar players of all-time. On May 14, 2002, Chuck Berry was honored as one of the first BMI Icons at the 50th annual BMI Pop Awards. He was presented the award along with BMI affiliates Bo Diddley and Little Richard.

 

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Jane Matilda Bolin LL.B. (April 11, 1908 – January 8, 2007) was the first African-American woman to graduate from Yale Law School, the first to join the New York City Bar Association, and the first to join the New York City Law Department. She became the first black woman to serve as a judge in the United States when she was sworn into the bench of the New York City Domestic Relations Court in 1939.

Bolin was born in Poughkeepsie, New York. She was the youngest of four siblings. Her father, Gaius Charles Bolin, was the first African-American to graduate from Williams College and became a lawyer. Her mother, Matilda Ingram Bolin (née Emery), a white Englishwoman, died when Bolin was 8 years old.

Bolin was educated at high school in Poughkeepsie, and was one of two black students in her class at Wellesley College in Massachusetts. Most of the white students ignored her, and she lived off campus with the other black student. A careers adviser at Wellesley College tried to discourage her from applying to attend Yale Law School due to her race and gender. She graduated in 1928 in the top 20 in her class, and joined Yale Law School, where she was the only black student, and one of only three women. She was the first African-American woman to receive a law degree from Yale in 1931 and passed the New York state bar examination in 1932. She practiced with her father in Poughkeepsie for a short period, and then with her first husband, Ralph E. Mizelle. She ran unsuccessfully for the New York State Assembly as the Republican candidate in the seventeenth district in 1936. She then joined New York City's legal department, serving as Assistant Corporation Counsel.

The mayor of New York City, Fiorello La Guardia, appointed 31-year-old Bolin as a judge of the Domestic Relations Court on July 22, 1939, at the New York World's Fair. She remained a judge of the court, renamed the Family Court in 1962, for 40 years, with her appointment being renewed three times, until she was required to retire aged 70. She worked to encourage racially integrated child services, ensuring that probation officers were assigned without regard to race or religion, and publicly funded childcare agencies accepted children without regard to ethnic background.

Her son, Yorke Bolin Mizelle, was born in 1941. Her first husband died in 1943. She married her second husband, the Rev. Walter P. Offutt Jr., in 1950. He died in 1974.

Bolin was an activist for children's rights and education. She served on the boards of the NAACP, the Child Welfare League, and the National Urban League. She received honorary degrees from Tuskeegee Institute, Williams College, Hampton University, Western College for Women and Morgan State University.

She retired in 1979 and served on the New York State Board of Regents. She died in Queens, and was survived by her son, Yorke Mizelle.

 

[Deadpool1986]

Edward Brooke
Edward Brooke was the first African American to be elected by popular vote to the United States Senate when he was elected as a Republican from Massachusetts in 1966. He was also the first African American elected to the Senate since the 19th century, and would remain the only person of African heritage sent to the Senate in the 20th century until Democrat Carol Moseley Braun in 1993, and was the last Republican Senator elected from Massachusetts until the 2010 election of Scott Brown.
Edward Brooke, III was born in Washington, D.C., on October 26, 1919. His father, Edward Brooke, Jr., was an attorney for the Veterans Administration for more than fifty years, and his mother, Helen, later worked on all of Brooke's political campaigns.

Brooke attended Dunbar High School. Upon his graduation from Howard University in 1941, he spent five years as an officer in the Army, and saw combat in Italy during World War II as a member of the segregated 366th Infantry Regiment, winning a Bronze Star. In Italy he met and later married Remigia Ferrari-Scacco, with whom he had two daughters, Remi and Edwina. Following Brooke's discharge, he graduated from Boston University Law School in 1948.

He was the chairman of Finance Commission of Boston from 1961 to 1962. Edward Brooke was elected Attorney General of Massachusetts in 1962 and re-elected in 1964. In so doing, he became the first elected African-American Attorney General of any state in American history. In this position, Brooke gained a reputation as a vigorous prosecutor of organized crime, and coordinated with local police departments on the Boston strangler case, although the press mocked him for permitting an alleged psychic to participate in the investigation. Brooke was portrayed in the 1968 film dramatizing the case by William Marshall.

In 1966 Brooke defeated former Governor Endicott Peabody to become a United States Senator representing the state of Massachusetts. During his first term in the Senate, Brooke spent a great deal of time on the issue of the Vietnam War, traveling to Asia on fact-finding missions. Upon his return, he requested that the United States cease using napalm. He also began calling for an end to trade with South Africa because of its apartheid policies.

In 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed Edward Brooke to the National Commission on Civil Disorders, which made recommendations that ultimately took shape as the 1968 Civil Rights Act. Brooke later challenged Richard Nixon's Supreme Court nominees Hainsworth and Carswell, even though he had supported Nixon's bid for the presidency. Brooke later became the first senator to call for Nixon's resignation. Leaving Congress in 1979, Brooke spent another six years in private practice before retiring.

After leaving the Senate, Brooke practiced law in Washington, D.C., and served as chairman of the board of the National Low Income Housing Coalition. In 1996, he became the first chairman of the World Policy Council, a think tank of Alpha Phi Alpha whose purpose is to expand the fraternity's involvement in politics, and social and current policy to encompass international concerns. Brooke currently serves as the council's chairman emeritus and was honorary chairman at the Centennial Convention of Alpha Phi Alpha held in Washington, D.C., in 2006.

President Obama honored Edward Brooke with the Congressional Gold Medal. Brooke, the first African American to be elected to the Senate by popular vote, was praised by President Obama as a political pioneer who broke racial barriers and bridged divides to move "the arc of history. Speaking in the Capitol Rotunda at a ceremony where Brooke, 90, was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, the body's highest honor, Obama said that Brooke ignored the "naysayers" and rejected conventional wisdom to carve out a history-making political career.

Edward Brooke has received thirty-four honorary degrees from the nation's most prestigious colleges and universities and numerous other awards, including the Spingarn Medal from the NAACP and the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit from the Italian Government. In 2000, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts dedicated a courthouse in his honor.

 

[Deadpool1986]

February 4 - Today in 1986, a stamp of Sojourner Truth is issued by the U.S. Postal Service.

 

[Deadpool1986]

Black History Little Known Facts
Fact #11

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After African-American performer Josephine Baker expatriated to France, she famously smuggled military intelligence to French allies during World War II. She did this by pinning secrets inside her dress, as well as hiding them in her sheet music.

Fact #12
Scientist and mathematician Benjamin Banneker is credited with helping to design the blueprints for Washington, D.C.

Fact #13
Before he was a renowned artist, Romare Bearden was also a talented baseball player. He was recruited by the Philadelphia Athletics on the pretext that he would agree to pass as white. He turned down the offer, instead choosing to work on his art.

Fact #14
Though he is of Caribbean ancestry and had a trailblazing smash with his 1956 album Calypso, Harry Belafonte was actually born in the United States. The internationally renowned entertainment icon and human rights activist is from Harlem, New York.

Fact #15
Musician and activist Harry Belafonte originally devised the idea for "We Are the World," a single that he hoped would help raise money for famine relief in Africa. The song was a huge success, going multi-platinum and bringing in millions of dollars.

 

[Deadpool1986]

Home » Little Known Black History Facts » Little Known Black History Fact: Judge June Berry Darensburg
Little Known Black History Fact: Judge June Berry Darensburg

Judge June Berry Darensburg is now the first black woman to serve as a Judicial District Court Chief Judge in the Jefferson parish of New Orleans. She is also the first African American woman to be elected to the district court. Darensburg is the 24th judge of the court and will sit for a two-year term. She will replace Judge John Molaison on the 16-member bench.

June Darensburg graduated from Grace King High School in Metairie in 1980. She received her Bachelor of Science in Pharmacy from Xavier in 1985. She started her career as a pharmacist before moving to law, beginning with a position at the public defender’s office. Darensburg is a graduate of Loyola University School of Law.

On April 1, 2006, Judge Darensburg was elected judge to the 24th Judicial District Court, Division C, for Jefferson Parish, becoming the first black woman to hold the honorable position. She was re-elected without opposition for another term.

Chief judges elected to the District Court aren’t given anything extra in their paychecks for their appointment. They do, however, become the media’s ‘go-to’ for interviews and work closely with law enforcement. One of the court’s major challenges has been when inmates seek reviews of their cases without an attorney.

Judge Darensburg made additional headlines when she recently filed suit against NGM Insurance Company, Indoor Air Technologies Inc. and Rafael Rosario Jr. in the 24th Judicial District Court on December 11, 2013 for an accident leading to personal injury. Her case includes charges of physical pain and suffering, mental anguish, permanent disability, medical expenses, loss of income, loss of earning capacity, loss of enjoyment of life, property damage, towing, storage, depreciation, loss of use and rental.

Judge Darensburg is a member of the Louisiana State Bar Association, American Bar Association, Jefferson Bar Association, Louis A. Martinet Society, National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, National Association of Women Judges, Louisiana Judicial Council-NBA Division, Louisiana District Judges Association, Fourth and Fifth Circuit Judges Associations and Louisiana Pharmacy Association.

She is also a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated, Jefferson Dollars for Scholars, Jefferson Parish Children and Youth Planning Board, Our Lady of Perpetual Help Advisory Board, the Westwego Rotary Club, the Xavier University Investigational Review Board, Legal Aid Bureau Board and Leadership Jefferson Task Force. She currently holds the position of Chairperson of the Finance and Facilities Committee in the 24th Judicial District Court.

 

[Deadpool1986]

Absalom Jones
Absalom Jones (1746 – February 13, 1818) was an African-American abolitionist and clergyman. After finding a black congregation in 1794, he was the first African American ordained as a priest in the Episcopal Church of the United States, in 1804. He is listed on the Episcopal calendar of saints and blessed under the date of his death, February 13, in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer as "Absalom Jones, Priest, 1818".

Early life
Jones was born into slavery in Sussex County, Delaware in 1746. When he was sixteen, he was sold to a storeowner in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. One of the store's clerks taught him to write. While still a slave of Mr. Wynkoop, he married Mary King (slave to S. King who was a neighbor to the Wynkoops), another slave, on January 4, 1770. Mr. Duché performed the wedding ceremony. By 1778 he had purchased his wife's freedom so that their children would be free, creating an appeal for donations and loans, and in another seven years he was able to purchase his own.[1]

Ministerial career
Jones became a lay minister at the interracial congregation of St. George's Methodist Church. Together with Richard Allen, he was one of the first African Americans licensed to preach by the Methodist Church.

In 1772, while at St. George's Methodist Church, Absalom Jones and other black members were told that they could not join the rest of the congregation in seating and kneeling on the first floor and instead had to be segregated first sitting against the wall and then on the balcony, leading to the black members of the church getting up and walking out but not till they had completed their prayer.[2] Absalom Jones and Richard Allen founded the Free African Society (FAS), first conceived as a non-denominational mutual aid society, to help newly freed slaves in Philadelphia. Jones and Allen separated over their different directions in religion, but they remained lifelong friends and collaborators.[3]

At the beginning of 1791, Jones started holding religious services at FAS. This became the core of his congregation for a new church. Wanting to establish a black congregation independent of white control, Jones in 1792 founded the congregation of the African Church in Philadelphia. It petitioned to become an Episcopal parish. The church opened its doors on July 17, 1794, as the African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas, the first black church in Philadelphia.[3] Jones was ordained as a deacon in 1795 and as a priest in 1804, the first African-American priest in the Episcopal Church.[3] He was a well-known orator and helped establish the tradition of anti-slavery sermons on New Year's Day.

A month after the church opened, the Founders and Trustees published "The Causes and Motives for Establishing St. Thomas's African Church of Philadelphia," clearly stating their intent

"to arise out of the dust and shake ourselves, and throw off that servile fear, that the habit of oppression and bondage trained us up in."[4]

It was rumored that Absalom possessed supernatural abilities to influence the minds of assembled congregations. White observers failed to recognize his oratory skills and believed rhetoric to be beyond the capabilities of black people. Numerous other African-American leaders were similarly implicated in supernatural activities due to these beliefs.[4]

Fugitive Slave Act
After he was said to be the first slave to be a priest in the 19th century, Jones took part of the first group of African Americans to petition the U.S. Congress. Their petition related to the 1793 Fugitive Slave Act which was criticized for encouraging cruelty and brutality, and noted the danger which free blacks risked of being kidnapped and sold into slavery. In this work he used moral suasion, Which was trying to convince whites that slavery was immoral, offensice to God, and contrar to the nation's deal.[5] While U.S. Representative George Thatcher of Massachusetts responded with the desire to amend the Fugitive Slave Act, other representatives' resistance to changing the law forced his proposal to fail.

African Methodist Episcopal Church
On a parallel path, Allen founded the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME), the first independent black church within the Methodist tradition. He and his followers converted a building and opened on July 29, 1794 as Bethel AME Church. In 1799, Allen was ordained as the first black minister in the Methodist Church by Bishop Francis Asbury. In 1816, Allen gathered other black congregations in the region to create a new and fully independent denomination, the African Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1816, he was elected the AME's first bishop.

Yellow Fever In Philadelphia
During the yellow fever plague in Philadelphia Richard Allen and Absalom Jones lead the way in helping people who were suffering from the plague. They helped nurse the sick and bury the dead a job that most people would not do for fear that they themselves might get sick. Jones displayed a work effort that surprise many people because he would sometime loss sleep and work all night to help the people out. Jones and Allen would also recruit many people would help the sick and many of these people were black, in the end there was almost twenty times more blacks people helping then whites.[6]

 

[Deadpool1986]

Richard Allen (bishop)

Richard Allen (February 14, 1760 – March 26, 1831)[1] was a minister, educator, and writer, and the founder in 1794 of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME), the first independent black denomination in the United States. He opened his first AME church in 1794 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was elected the first bishop of the AME Church in 1816. Allen was one of America's most active and influential black leaders. He focused on organizing a denomination where free blacks could worship without racial oppression and where slaves could find a measure of dignity. He worked to upgrade the social status of the black community, organizing Sabbath schools to teach literacy, and promoting national organizations to develop political strategies.[2]

Born into slavery, Allen had no formal education. As a young man, he worked to buy his freedom from his master in Delaware. He went to Philadelphia in 1786, licensed as a Methodist preacher. He belonged for a time to St. George's Methodist Church, but he and his supporters resented its segregation and decided to leave the church. In 1787 he and Absalom Jones founded the Free African Society (FAS), a non-denominational, mutual aid society for blacks in Philadelphia, which particularly helped widows and children. Eventually they each founded independent black congregations in 1794.

Early life and freedom
Richard Allen was born into slavery on February 14, 1760, to Benjamin Chew, a wealthy merchant of Philadelphia. When he was a child, he and his family were sold to Stokeley Sturgis, who had a plantation in Delaware. When Sturgis had financial problems, he sold Richard's mother and three of his five siblings. Allen had an older brother and sister left with him, and the three began to attend meetings of the local Methodist Society, which was welcoming to slaves and free blacks. They were encouraged by their master Sturgis, although he was unconverted. Richard had taught himself to read and write. He joined the Methodists at age 17. He began evangelizing and attracted criticism from local slave owners. Allen and his brother redoubled their efforts for Sturgis so no one could say his slaves did not do well because of religion.[3]

Reverend Freeborn Garrettson, who had freed his own slaves in 1775, began to preach in Delaware; he was among many Methodist and Baptist ministers after the American Revolutionary War who encouraged slaveholders to emancipate their people. When Garrettson visited the Sturgis plantation to preach, "Allen's master was touched by this declaration... began to give consideration to the thought that holding slaves was sinful..." Sturgis soon was convinced that slavery was wrong, and offered his slaves an opportunity to buy their freedom. Allen performed extra work to earn the money and bought his freedom in 1780, after which changing his name from "Negro Richard" to "Richard Allen".[4]

Marriage and family
After moving to Philadelphia, Allen met and married Sarah Bass, a freed slave from Virginia. She moved to Philadelphia as a child and the couple met around 1800. She was Allen's second wife. The couple had six children. Bass was highly active in what would become the AME Church, and is called the "Founding Mother".[5][6] Allen's first wife was named Flora. He and Flora married on October 19,1790. She worked very closely with him during the his early years of establishing the church from 1787 to 1799. They attended church school and worked together purchasing land, which was eventually donated to the church or rented out to families. Flora Allen died on March 11, 1801, after a long illness. The couple bore no children.[citation needed]

 

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Ministry
Allen was qualified as a preacher in 1784 at the Christmas Conference, the founding of the Methodist Church in North America at Baltimore, Maryland. He was one of the two black attendees of the conference along with Harry Hosier, but neither were permitted a vote during deliberations. Allen was subsequently allowed to lead services at 5 AM, which were attended mostly by blacks. Eschewing Asbury and Hosier's circuit riding practices, he moved to Philadelphia, a center of free blacks.

In 1786, Allen became a preacher at St. George's Methodist Episcopal Church, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but was restricted to early morning services. As he attracted more black congregants, the church vestry ordered them to be in a separate area for worship. Allen also regularly preached on the commons near the church, slowly gaining a congregation of nearly 50, and supporting himself with a variety of odd jobs.

Allen and Absalom Jones, also a Methodist preacher, resented the white congregants' segregating the blacks for worship and prayer. They decided to leave St. George's to create independent worship for African Americans. This brought some opposition from the white church as well as the more established blacks of the community.

In 1787, Allen and Jones led the black members out of St. George's Methodist Church. They formed the Free African Society (FAS), a non-denominational mutual aid society, which assisted fugitive slaves and new migrants to the city. Allen, along with Absalom Jones, William Gray and William Wilcher, found an available lot on Sixth Street near Lombard. Allen negotiated a price and purchased this lot in 1787 to build a church, but it was years before they had a building. Now occupied by Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, this is the oldest parcel of real estate in the United States owned continuously by African Americans.

Over time, most of the FAS members chose to affiliate with the Episcopal Church, as many blacks in Philadelphia had been Anglicans since the 1740s.[7] They founded the African Church with Absalom Jones. It was accepted as a parish congregation and opened its doors on July 17, 1794 as the African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas. In 1795, Absalom Jones was ordained as a deacon, and in 1804 as a priest, becoming the first black ordained in the United States as an Episcopal priest.

Allen and others wanted to continue in the Methodist practice. Allen called their congregation the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME). Converting a blacksmith shop on Sixth Street, the leaders opened the doors of Bethel AME Church on July 29, 1794. At first affiliated with the larger Methodist Episcopal Church, they had to rely on visiting white ministers for communion. In recognition of his leadership and preaching, in 1799, Allen was ordained as the first black Methodist minister by Bishop Francis Asbury. He and the congregation still had to continue to negotiate white oversight and deal with white elders of the denomination. A decade after its founding, the AME Church had 457 members and in 1813, it had 1,272.[7]

In 1816, Allen united four African-American congregations of the Methodist Church in Philadelphia, Salem, New Jersey; Delaware, and Maryland. Together they founded the independent denomination of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME), the first fully independent black denomination in the United States. On April 10, 1816, the other ministers elected Allen as their first bishop. The African Methodist Episcopal Church is the oldest and largest formal institution in black America.

From 1797 until his death in 1831, Allen and Sara operated a station on the Underground Railroad for fugitive slaves.

Negro Convention
In September 1830, black representatives from seven states convened in Philadelphia at the Bethel AME church for the first Negro Convention. A civic meeting, it was the first on such a scale organized by African-American leaders. Allen presided over the meeting, which addressed both regional and national topics. The convention occurred after the 1826 and 1829 riots in Cincinnati, when whites had attacked blacks and destroyed their businesses. After the 1829 rioting, 1200 blacks left the city to go to Canada.[8] As a result, the Negro Convention addressed organizing aid to such settlements in Canada, among other issues. The 1830 meeting was the beginning of an organizational effort known as the Negro Convention Movement, part of 19th-century institution building in the black community.[9] Conventions were held regularly on a national level.

Death and burial
Allen died at home on Spruce Street on March 26, 1831.[10] He was buried at the church he founded. His grave remains on the lower level.[11]

Legacy and honors

• Allen is honored with a feast day, March 26, on the liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church (USA) on March 26.
• 2001, the Richard Allen Preparatory School, a charter school, was opened in his name in SW Philadelphia.
• In 2002, Molefi Kete Asante named Richard Allen as one of the 100 Greatest African Americans.[12]
• 2010, a park in Radnor Township was named for him. Radnor is situated approximately 15 miles west of Philadelphia.
• The Richard Allen Homes, a public housing project in Philadelphia, were named for him.
• A street in Cambridge, Massachusetts is named after him.

 

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African Methodist Episcopal Church

The African Methodist Episcopal Church, usually called the A.M.E. Church, is a predominantly African-American Methodist denomination based in the United States. It was founded by the Rev. Richard Allen in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1816 from several black Methodist congregations in the mid-Atlantic area that wanted independence from white Methodists. Allen was consecrated its first bishop in 1816.
Church name

• African: The AME Church was organized by people of African descent. The church was not founded in Africa, nor is it only for persons of African descent. The church is open to people of all races.
• Methodist: The church's roots are in the Methodist church. Members of St. George's Methodist Church left the congregation when faced with racial discrimination, but continued with the Methodist doctrine and the order of worship.
• Episcopal: The AME Church operates under an episcopal form of church government.[1] The denomination leaders are bishops of the church.

Motto
"God Our Father, Christ Our Redeemer, the Holy Spirit Our Comforter, Humankind Our Family"

Derived from Bishop Daniel Alexander Payne's original motto "God our Father, Christ our Redeemer, Man our Brother", which served as the AME Church motto until the 2008 General Conference, when the current motto was officially adopted.

History
The AME Church grew out of the Free African Society (FAS), which Richard Allen, Absalom Jones, and other free blacks established in Philadelphia in 1787. They left St. George's Methodist Episcopal Church because of discrimination. Although Allen and Jones were both accepted as preachers, they were limited to black congregations. In addition, the blacks were made to sit in a separate gallery built in the church when their portion of the congregation increased. These former members of St. George’s made plans to transform their mutual aid society into an African congregation. Although the group was originally non-denominational, eventually members wanted to affiliate with existing denominations.

Allen led a small group who resolved to remain Methodist. They formed the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1793. In general, they adopted the doctrines and form of government of the Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1794 Bethel AME was dedicated with Allen as pastor. To establish Bethel’s independence, Allen successfully sued in the Pennsylvania courts in 1807 and 1815 for the right of his congregation to exist as an institution independent of white Methodist congregations. Because black Methodists in other middle Atlantic communities also encountered racism and desired religious autonomy, Allen called them to meet in Philadelphia in 1816 to form a new Wesleyan denomination, the "African Methodist Episcopal Church" (AME Church).

The African Methodist Episcopal Church has a unique history as it is the first major religious denomination in the western world that developed because of sociological rather than theological differences. It was the first African-American denomination organized and incorporated in the United States. The church was born in protest against racial discrimination and slavery. This was in keeping with the Methodist Church's philosophy, whose founder John Wesley had once called the slave-trade "that execrable sum of all villainies." In the 19th century, the AME Church of Ohio collaborated with the Methodist Episcopal Church, a predominantly white denomination, in sponsoring the second independent historically black college (HBCU), Wilberforce University in Ohio. Among Wilberforce University's early founders was Salmon P. Chase, then-governor of Ohio and the future Secretary of Treasury under President Abraham Lincoln.

Other members of the FAS wanted to affiliate with the Protestant Episcopal Church and followed Absalom Jones in doing that. In 1792, they founded the African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas, the first Episcopal church in the United States with a founding black congregation. In 1804, Jones was ordained as the first black priest in the Episcopal Church.

While the AME is doctrinally Methodist, clergy, scholars, and lay persons have written works that demonstrate the distinctive racial theology and praxis that have come to define this Wesleyan body. In an address to the 1893 World’s Parliament of Religions, Bishop Benjamin W. Arnett reminded the audience of blacks' influence in the formation of Christianity. Bishop Benjamin T. Tanner wrote in 1895 in The Color of Solomon – What? that biblical scholars wrongly portrayed the son of David as a white man. In the post-civil rights era, theologians James Cone,[2] Cecil W. Cone, and Jacqueline Grant, who came from the AME tradition, critiqued Euro-centric Christianity and African-American churches for their shortcomings in resolving the plight of those oppressed by racism, sexism, and economic disadvantage.

 

[Deadpool1986]

Beliefs
The AME motto, "God Our Father, Christ Our Redeemer, Holy Spirit Our Comforter, Humankind Our Family", reflects the basic beliefs of the African Methodist Episcopal Church.

The basic foundations of the beliefs of the church can be summarized in the Apostles' Creed, and The Twenty Five Articles of Religion, held in common with other Methodist Episcopal congregations. The church also observes the official bylaws of the AME Church. The "Doctrine and Discipline of the African Methodist Episcopal Church" is revised at every General Conference and published every five years.

Church mission

The Mission of the African Methodist Episcopal Church is to minister to the social, spiritual, physical development of all people. At every level of the Connection and in every local church, the African Methodist Episcopal Church shall engage in carrying out the spirit of the original Free African Society, out of which the AME Church evolved: that is, to seek out and save the lost, and serve the needy. It is also the duty of the Church to continue to encourage all members to become involved in all aspects of church training. The ultimate purposes are: (1) make available God's biblical principles, (2) spread Christ's liberating gospel, and (3) provide continuing programs which will enhance the entire social development of all people. In order to meet the needs at every level of the Connection and in every local church, the AME Church shall implement strategies to train all members in: (1) Christian discipleship, (2)Christian leadership, (3) current teaching methods and materials, (4) the history and significance of the AME Church, (5) God's biblical principles, and (6) social development to which all should be applied to daily living.

1. preaching the gospel,
2. feeding the hungry,
3. clothing the naked,
4. housing the homeless,
5. cheering the fallen,
6. providing jobs for the jobless,
7. administering to the needs of those in prisons, hospitals, nursing homes, asylums and mental institutions, senior citizens' homes; caring for the sick, the shut-in, the mentally and socially disturbed,
8. encouraging thrift and economic advancement.,[3] and
9. bringing people back into church.
   
   

Colleges, seminaries and universities
The African Methodist Episcopal Church has been one of the forerunners of education within the African-American community.

Former colleges & universities of the AME Church:

• Western University (Kansas)
• Campbell College, Jackson, Mississippi - now part of Jackson State University

Senior colleges within the United States:

• Allen University (Columbia, SC) Website
  
  
• Edward Waters College (Jacksonville, FL) Website
  
  
• Morris Brown College (Atlanta, GA) Website
  
  
• Paul Quinn College (Dallas, TX) Website
  
  
• Wilberforce University (Wilberforce, OH) Website
  

Junior colleges within the United States:

• Shorter College (North Little Rock, AR) Website
  

Theological seminaries within the United States:

• Jackson Theological Seminary Website
  
  
• Payne Theological Seminary Website
  
  
• Turner Theological Seminary Website
  

Foreign colleges and universities:

• African Methodist Episcopal University, Liberia

Structure
The General Conference
The General Conference is the supreme body of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. It is composed of the Bishops, as ex officio presidents, according to the rank of election, and an equal number of ministerial and lay delegates, elected by each of the Annual Conferences and the lay Electoral Colleges of the Annual Conferences. Other ex officio members are: the General Officers, College Presidents, Deans of Theological Seminaries; Chaplains in the Regular Armed Forces of the U.S.A. The General Conference meets every four years, but may have extra sessions in certain emergencies.

Council of Bishops
The Council of Bishops is the Executive Branch of the Connectional Church. It has the general oversight of the Church during the interim between General Conferences. The Council of Bishops shall meet annually at such time and place as the majority of the Council shall determine and also at such other times as may be deemed necessary in the discharging its responsibility as the Executive Branch of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. The Council of Bishops shall hold at least two public sessions at each annual meeting. At the first, complaints and petitions against a Bishop shall be heard, at the second, the decisions of the Council shall be made public. All decisions shall be in writing.

Board of Incorporators
The Board of Incorporators, also known as the General Board of Trustees, has the supervision, in trust, of all connectional property of the Church and is vested with authority to act in behalf of the Connectional Church wherever necessary.

The General Board
The General Board is in many respects the administrative body and comprises various departmental Commissions made up of the respective Secretary-Treasurer, the General Secretary of the AME, Church the General Treasurer and the members of the various Commissions and one Bishop as presiding officer with the other Bishops associating.

Judicial Council
The Judicial Council is the highest judicatory body of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. It is an appellate court, elected by the General Conference and is amenable to it.

AME Connectional Health Commission
The Connectional Health Commission serves, among other tasks, to help the denomination understand health as an integral part of the faith of the Christian Church, to seek to make our denomination a healing faith community, and to promote the health concerns of its members. One of the initiatives of the commission is the establishment of an interactive website that will allow not only health directors, but the AMEC membership at-large to access health information, complete reports, request assistance. This website serves as a resource for members of the AMEC, and will be the same for anyone who accesses the website. Additionally, as this will be an interactive site, it will allow health directors to enter a password protected chat room to discuss immediate needs and coordinate efforts for relief regionally, nationally and globally.

It is through this website that efforts to distribute information about resources and public health updates, and requests for services may be coordinated nationally. This will allow those who access the website to use one central location for all resource information needs.[4]