July’s genealogy column dealt with the evolution over time of the Methodist denomination, to which many Arkansans’ ancestors have been adherents over the years. For this month, I briefly discuss the rise of the African American Methodist churches which have been important elements of Arkansas’s larger “community of faith.” This topic is particularly significant in light of recently-released U.S. Census figures for 2020 which indicate that the number of Americans who identify themselves as being of “mixed” background—that is, whose ancestors come from more than one racial or cultural group—constitute the second-largest category of U.S. residents; as our families are complex, so may be our ancestors’ religious associations.
As stated in last month’s article, when the M.E. church formed in 1784, it opposed slavery; a small portion, about 10 percent of the membership, was African American. That same year Richard Allen, a former enslaved person, became an assistant minister at St. George M.E. Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Allen was restricted to early morning services and coordinating African American congregants’ prayer meetings. Due to Allen’s influence St. George’s membership grew, but it also resulted in a negative reaction: Over time, white congregants’ attitudes changed, and African Americans began to face discrimination, made manifest by their being moved to the church balcony. In frustration, Allen led an exodus of Black congregants around 1791-1792. Allen was still a believer in the Wesleyan Methodist tradition, though, and sought to establish a Wesleyan church in and for Philadelphia’s African American community. In 1794 Allen founded the Bethel African Church in Philadelphia. More than two decades later, in 1816, five African American churches from the Northeast region of the United States came together and formed the African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Church, keeping a similar structure to that of the M.E. Church. Richard Allen became the first bishop of this new foundation.
At the same time Allen was working in Philadelphia, the African American congregants of New York City’s John Street Methodist Church faced rising discrimination within their own congregation. In 1796 they left the M.E. fold and formed the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. Their first building, named Zion, opened in 1800. The denomination grew rapidly and by 1820, six churches had been created; two years later, the Reverend James Varick became its first bishop.
These churches, the A.M.E and A.M.E.Z., were the main African American churches which followed Methodist theology. Their creation came out of frustration with the lack of the appointment of black ministers and the discrimination that was developing in the white-dominated M.E. church, but they proved to be more than simple reactions: both became essential forces within the African American communities they served. This would prove particularly important in terms of aiding and protecting runaway enslaved individuals. Up until the end of slavery, both denominations coordinated stops along the underground railroad. After emancipation, even before the end of hostilities, both sent missionaries to the South to aid the formerly enslaved. In result, both denominations gained significant numbers of new members, far from their original bases.
In 1868, the A.M.E. Church was organized in Arkansas under Reverend Nathan Warren. Warren, who had been brought here as an enslaved person by Arkansas’s first Territorial Secretary Robert Crittenden, had managed to buy his freedom. Warren ran a successful confectionary shop in Little Rock until 1857, when Warren took his family north to Xenia, Ohio. After Union forces occupied Little Rock in 1863, Warren returned to the city and became a minister. He successfully established two congregations in 1866: Bethel A.M.E. Church (Little Rock) and Carter’s Chapel (Helena), thus establishing the first A.M.E. churches in the state. A few years later, in 1875, Bethel A.M.E. Church’s new home was dedicated at 9th Street and Broadway in Little Rock; it was also at this location that the first classes were held for Bethel Institute (now Shorter College). At the same time that Bethel A.M.E. and Carter’s Chapel were established, in the southwest portion of the state Bishop Jabez Campbell was establishing St. Paul A.M.E. Church at Arkadelphia. in November 1868, Arkansas’s first Annual Conference was held and four years later at the A.M.E.’s General Conference, Arkansas became a district. By 1890 the church had an estimated 28,000 members in the state making it the largest of the African American Methodist denominations in the state.
As for the A.M.E.Z., before the Twentieth century it remained less prominent in Arkansas. As mentioned earlier, the denomination sent missionaries south after the Civil War to assist former enslaved individuals. Arkansas at the time was part of the Tennessee Conference, but by 1870 the church was rooted enough to stand on its own as the Arkansas Conference. The Conference experienced difficulty in getting a firm footing and it was initially short lived. In 1879 though, Bishop J.P. Thompson took on the task of reviving the Arkansas Conference and was successful; later membership added the Northern Arkansas Conference. Membership in the denomination, however, never reached that of the Arkansas A.M.E. church; by 1890 there were only about 3,600 members.
The Colored Methodist Episcopal Church (now the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church), unlike the A.M.E and A.M.E.Z. churches, was not already established by the Civil War. Organized in 1866, out of a movement within the M.E. Church South, the C.M.E. Church became one of the most significant churches in African American communities in Arkansas and throughout the South. The church appeared originally as independent churches, and they eventually came together in December 1870 at Jackson, Tennessee, to formally establish the denomination. Unlike the A.M.E. and A.M.E.Z. communions, it remained Southern based until African Americans began migrating north between 1870 and the end of World War I. In Arkansas, it constituted the second largest group within African American Methodism. By 1890, the Arkansas C.M.E. Church counted nearly 6,000 members.
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Given the long history of African American Methodism in Arkansas, one would expect there to exist ample records at both conference and congregational levels but in this field, as in many others, finding the desired church records for one’s genealogical research can at times be frustrating. The Arkansas State Archives preserves significant numbers of records pertaining to these different denominations. However, the bulk of the ASA’s material deals with the Arkansas A.M.E conference and individual church records, reflecting this denomination’s larger number of adherents and congregations throughout the state; these consist not only of standalone records from the conference or congregations, but also material that forms part of donated in individual collections. For quick reference, consult not only the ASA’s resource guide to Religions in Arkansas but also our guide to African American collections, at https://digitalheritage.arkansas.gov/resource-guides/. Additionally, Methodist-affiliated Philander Smith College of Little Rock preserves valuable source materials in this area, some of which may be accessed through their Digital Archive at https://pscdigitalarchive.omeka.net/. The district church and conference records for the 12th Episcopal District of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, North Little Rock are in Nashville, Tennessee; they may be consulted at https://www.ame-church.com/our-church/our-history/. These will give you a sense and details of structural changes within the church; if your family tree includes M.E. ministers or deacons, these records will yield the details of their activities within the conferences.
Documents for the A.M.E.Z. and C.M.E. denominations are harder to track down, but one rich resource for these communions, as well as the A.M.E., is found at Drew University, on whose campus the United Methodist Church's General Commission on Archives and History is located. The Commission maintains an archive of Methodist records and artifacts from the 19th century to the present, including on all three African American Congregations. Information about the Commission’s archives may be found at: https://drew.edu/library/2019/08/21/united-methodist-archives-and-history-center/ .
Keep in mind that, just as with any genealogical quest, many records remain in private hands, including ledgers, registers and files still held and safeguarded by individual congregations: Accessing these sources may require contacting and visiting these houses of worship. This should not be a discouragement, though; one of the best parts of looking for and finding one’s ancestors and learning their stories is the opportunity of making new acquaintances, sharing your story and in turn learning theirs.
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For More information:
Britton, Nancy. Two Centuries of Methodism in Arkansas, 1800-2000. Little Rock: August House, 2000
Harper, Misti Nicole. “African Methodist Episcopal Church.” Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture (https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/african-methodist-episcopal-church-5358/). Accessed August 12 2021.
Ross, Margaret Smith. “Nathan Warren: A Free Negro of the Old South.” Arkansas Historical Quarterly 15 (Spring 1956): 53–61.