by Herb Frazier
While the AME Church was suppressed in Charleston, the denomination continued uninterrupted in the North, where it made substantial contributions to the abolitionist movement. In 1830, Bishop Richard Allen organized the first meeting of what would be known as the Negro National Convention Movement at Bethel AME Church. This was the first of twelve such meetings to occur before 1865. They were designed to convene African American leaders from the North to systematically examine the plight of slaves and free blacks and to formulate abolitionist and antiracist strategies for achieving racial justice in America.30
These national conventions were also the model for smaller state and regional conventions of black leaders. These were the forums in which black men, such as Frederick Douglass and William Wells Brown, both fugitive slaves, and others like them rose and denounced slavery while demanding they be accorded the rights of men. In 1843, in one of the most militant speeches given at one of these abolitionist conventions, Reverend Henry Highland Garnet rose and appealed to the slaves directly. He commended the memory of Denmark Vesey to them, calling him a “martyr to freedom” worthy of emulation. Going further he reminded them of the stark choice to be made: “However much you and all of us may desire it, there is not much hope of redemption without the shedding of blood. . . . rather die freemen, than live to be the slaves.”31
Under the relentless attack of such abolitionist rhetoric, white Carolinians feared that it would not be long before words translated into acts that threatened their lives. One article in the Charleston Courier observed the abolitionists were trying to destroy the slaves’ natural affinity for their owners through lies and distortions—and when successful they might as well “have armed him as with a dagger, and placed about a master and his family an enemy capable of conceiving their destruction.”32 Under these circumstances, Carolinians calculated the value of remaining in the Union, and after John Brown led a racially integrated assault on the federal arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia, the future seemed clear. The election of Abraham Lincoln in November 1860, as the candidate of the antislavery Republican Party, was the last straw. White Carolinians were a racial minority in their state, and with almost half of its white families owning slaves, South Carolina had the highest rate of slave ownership in the South. They would take no chance on finding out what life would be like in a country now governed by a man they considered an abolitionist—because slavery was the bedrock of their society. As John S. Preston, one of its most ardent defenders, declared: “Slavery is our King—slavery is our truth—slavery is our Divine Right.” Men have always sacrificed their lives for the glory and defense of their kings, and this time would be no different. On December 20, 1860, South Carolina became the first state to secede from the Union; the broken nation plunged into fratricidal war within months.33
SEVEN
RESURRECTION
Within weeks of South Carolina’s secession, several other like-minded Southern states left the Union, and in February 1861, they formed the nucleus of the Confederate States of America. According to its vice president, Alexander H. Stephens, this was a unique government in that “its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and moral condition.”1 Such a position notwithstanding, it was this government’s policies that set the stage for the almost inevitable conflict with the United States. After the Union army refused demands to abandon Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, the Confederates fired on it on April 12, 1861, which led to its surrender and evacuation two days later. The struggle over slavery and its implications that had smoldered in American life and politics for decades now burst into a raging conflagration. The trial through which the nation would pass brought the potential not only to destroy it but also to consume the South’s slaveholding order and to create a “new birth of freedom.”2
Early in November 1861, at the Battle of Port Royal, Union forces invaded the southern coast of South Carolina and successfully occupied the area. One slave reported what many must have experienced there when he said, “We saw the lightning—that was the guns! [A]nd then we heard the thunder—that was the big guns.”3 These scenes of unprecedented combat were remembered for generations up and down the coast as the “Days of the Big Gun Shoot.” These events were also interpreted in a religious framework and according to W. E. B. DuBois, an astute observer of Southern black life, “This was the coming of the Lord.”4 It was the famous Day of Jubilee that so many had waited for, and despite every method their masters used, including threats and coercion whenever Union troops came near, the slaves were encouraged to escape into their lines. This was because as one man observed, “Yankee fight fo’ free we!”5
Slavery’s demise proceeded unevenly and only reached Charleston late in the war, when the city finally fell to Union occupation on February 18, 1865. Black Charlestonians received freedom with the same ecstasy witnessed across the South. One month after the city’s evacuation, African Americans organized a huge parade to celebrate their new freedom. Stretching over two miles, the procession was led by black Union soldiers; it included a mock slave auction and culminated with a hearse bearing the “body of slavery.” Boldly written on the hearse for all to see were the words: Slavery Is Dead and Sumter Dug His Grave on the 13th of April, 1861.6
Charleston was fittingly the location for a national celebration commemorating the end of the war and slavery. On April 14, 1865, national politicians, military leaders, and abolitionists, as well as black and white soldiers, sailors, and marines, converged on Fort Sumter. William Lloyd Garrison, the famous white abolitionist, was there along with the acclaimed antislavery minister (and brother of novelist Harriet Beecher Stowe) Reverend Henry Ward Beecher. An estimated three thousand people were inside the fort, and thousands more were on boats of all kinds around its perimeter. Among those boats was the Planter, commanded by the fugitive slave and now famous war hero Capt. Robert Smalls. Smalls was accompanied by abolitionist Maj. Martin R. Delany, the highest-ranked black officer in the army; and by the son of Denmark Vesey. Along with throngs of others, these men witnessed the reraising of the American flag over Fort Sumter by Gen. Robert Anderson, who had been forced to surrender the fort to Confederate occupation four years earlier. Joyous tears streamed down the faces of the many who immediately understood the meaning of this hour.7
A new racial landscape unfolded across the South and the nation, but it was purchased at a tremendous price. More soldiers died in the Civil War than in all of the country’s wars from the Revolution to the Korean conflict combined. One-fifth of the South’s men of military age died in the war, and in South Carolina the figure may have been as high as 35 percent.8
The specter of death even claimed the life of the first American president to die from politically and racially inspired violence: shortly after Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee’s surrender, Abraham Lincoln discussed plans for reconstruction in a speech to the nation. In doing so, he became the first president to publicly support extending the right to vote to “very intelligent” African Americans and to black Union soldiers. Hearing these words, the actor and rabid Confederate supporter John Wilkes Booth, a man who already considered the president a tyrant, had his rage further kindled at the prospect of “nigger citizenship.” Booth vowed this would be Lincoln’s last speech, and only days later, on the evening of April 14, he assassinated the president in Washington’s Ford’s Theater.9
Dylann Roof and John Wilkes Booth share much in common. Both were deeply committed to the ideals of the Confederacy. At one point Booth contemplated riding through the streets of Washington waving the rebel flag; photographs of Roof show him actually waving a Confederate flag and burning the American flag.10 Although separated by 150 years, both were men without a country; neither could accept the social, political, or racial order he felt was unfairly thrust upon him, and each lashed out at the forces and the people that threatened white supremacy. In 1865, the triumphal president of the Unit
ed States was the enemy, and in 2015 the enemy was the black church, an institution that could only flourish after that same president vanquished the Confederacy and ended slavery. And it did flourish, by aiding the freedmen in reorganizing their postwar lives and serving as the foundation for much of the racial progress that occurred during the next 150 years. The black church was deeply rooted in Charleston, the “Holy City,” and African Methodism was destined to play a particularly important role within that larger story.
The restoration of the AME Church in South Carolina actually began during the Civil War when, in May 1863, Bishop Daniel Payne dispatched Northern missionaries to the state to begin working among the freedmen in the Port Royal area.11 As the Union army extended its control over the area, these men were also able to expand the range of their preaching and teaching. Now, for the first time since 1822, there were official representatives of African Methodism in the state, although the formal organization of the denomination had to wait until after the Union occupation of Charleston in February 1865. Three months later Bishop Payne, himself a Charlestonian who had been forced from the city in the 1830s because of its oppressive laws against free blacks, now returned triumphantly to establish a new Zion. On Monday, May 15, he convened the first session of the South Carolina Conference of the AME Church. One participant emotionally noted, “The new era has dawned, the sun has lit up the horizon, and humanity is rising to a just appreciation of the crisis.”12 According to Reverend Richard H. Cain, the events of that day could not be understood without remembering the life of Denmark Vesey and his compatriots, who died “as martyrs to human liberty.” The church was subsequently “demolished,” and Cain asserted further that “from that day to this, our people have had to wear the accursed yoke of religious bondage.”13 But now it was a new day, a resurrection day, and God’s glory showed forth as never before.
In this first meeting AME leaders challenged certain misconceptions and misrepresentations of the denomination that had been circulated, especially by Northern Methodists who saw the African Methodists as unwelcome competition. In a series of resolutions, for example, the conference denied that the term African meant that their church excluded mulattoes or whites from full participation in the denomination. Occurring in the wake of President Lincoln’s assassination, this body also passed resolutions expressing both grief and revulsion over this malicious act, the intent of which was to undermine free government and “perpetuate the horrid crime of negro slavery.”14
At this first conference the administrative structures of the church had to be established, and the various missionary stations were created for an episcopal district that originally included not only South Carolina but also Georgia, North Carolina, Florida, and Alabama. Those men who attended were from various locations North and South; some had been free while others were newly emancipated slaves. Some had been sent to South Carolina from other districts of the church, but others simply showed up to be of service. Some were fully ordained, and others were candidates for the ministry. In services described as dignified, solemn, and deeply impressive, candidates who qualified were ordained into the holy orders, and others were placed in the ministerial course of study. The district was divided into seven areas, and each was assigned a field superintendent to coordinate the work. Richard H. Cain was placed in charge of southern South Carolina and was based in Charleston.15
Richard Cain was born free in Virginia but spent his youth in Ohio, where he joined the AME church in Cincinnati. Bishop Payne discovered him in the 1850s and had him trained in the Indiana Conference and at Wilberforce University in Ohio. During the Civil War, Cain relocated to Bridge Street Church in Brooklyn, and he later founded Fleet Street Church there. Cain was not only an able minister, but he was a deeply committed abolitionist who was personally acquainted with some of the leading antislavery men of the day, such as Frederick Douglass and Henry Garnet.16 Bishop Payne recognized Cain’s talents, brought him to South Carolina, and placed him in charge of the church’s efforts in this vital state.
With Cain on the scene as representative of the new social and religious order, black Carolinians had to make a choice. They could remain under the old dispensation in the congregations of their former masters, or they could leave the houses of bondage and fully achieve their freedom. Given the eloquence and the charisma of Cain and the compelling story of African Methodism, the choice was an easy one for many. That’s why in less than two weeks of its organization, the black members of three of Charleston’s Methodist Episcopal churches—Bethel, Trinity, and Cumberland—joined the South Carolina Conference of the AME church.17
Cain threw himself into the work and took steps to secure a building in Charleston for regular services. Although he was granted use of Trinity Methodist Episcopal Church South, he opted not to use it in favor of meeting at Zion Presbyterian Church on Calhoun, near Meeting Street. This was a church originally constructed for Presbyterian slaves and was not far from one of the branches of the original African Church.18 These were difficult economic times. Much of the lower part of Charleston lay in ruins, but Cain proved his ability to organize people and to raise monies. Astoundingly, on September 25, 1865, an estimated crowd of three thousand people gathered to witness the ceremonial laying of the cornerstone for Emanuel, the city’s first postwar AME church building. Cain—who became the church’s first pastor—proudly announced that the edifice was designed by Robert Vesey, the son of Denmark Vesey. The two-story wooden frame building was estimated to cost about $10,000 and to have a seating capacity of about twenty-five hundred people.19 The rise of Emanuel Church as a building was both symbol and substance of the boldness that had characterized the antebellum African Church. For a people who dared to dream of emancipation, this site must have exceeded their fondest expectations; as the building went upwards, their spirits soared in reply.
Although simply constructed, the church represented the converging vision of African Methodism as a denomination with Richard Cain’s philosophy of black nationalism. The AME Church stood for a gospel of freedom, which rejected the values and limitations imposed by slavery and replaced them with a vision of the race defining its own goals and achieving its potential for full development, in accordance with Northern values. Cain’s black nationalist philosophy amplified church goals. His fundamental idea was that African Americans had a unique identity and should “rely primarily on themselves in vital areas of life—economic, political, religious and intellectual—to effect their liberation.”20 This is what makes the connection between Robert Vesey and Emanuel so vitally significant: when Cain described the construction of the building, he stressed the fact that every worker “is a colored man.” This is also why every minister who participated in the cornerstone-laying ceremony was a black man.21 Cain was not anti-white but understood the value of race patronage.
Undoubtedly some of Emanuel’s success was grounded in the knowledge that African Methodism was a racial enterprise that also offered unique forms of spiritual fulfillment. For many this was exactly what they sought in a church, and the congregation grew rapidly. In 1875, one church official thought its membership was the largest in the entire denomination; observers sometimes said it had a “mammoth congregation.” By the mid-1870s, it had 2,764 members; 372 probationers were served by one main (itinerant) pastor, 14 local preachers, 7 exhorters, and 70 class leaders. By 1882 as the membership crept closer to 4,000, many in the congregation began clamoring for the church body to be divided because the responsibilities were too much for one pastor. Emanuel had already given rise that year to Mount Zion AME Church, and Morris Brown AME Church was also established from its congregation in 1866.22
Starting with Richard Cain, the ministers of Mother Emanuel have had an expansive view of their role in the community. The secular needs of its congregation have often required the church to address material and spiritual concerns simultaneously. The church had an immediate role in strengthening black family life, and its ministers encouraged Victorian values i
n marriage and family relationships. Most freedmen never had a real marriage ceremony; many were eager to have their marriages solemnized, and most ministers were willing to accommodate. In addition, the church was national in scope and published the Christian Recorder. Its columns were frequently used to identify and locate family members who had been separated from one another during slavery or wartime. Sometimes family life was threatened by individual moral failings. This is why ministers frequently discussed how best to promote temperance and warned their congregations about the great ills that proceeded from intemperance. One group of ministers considered intemperance not only a threat to family life but “the great enemy of the human race.”23
Churchmen regarded education most highly as they considered both sacred and secular aspects of their work. The AME missionary James Lynch observed that in South Carolina, schools “have demonstrated the natural capacity of the colored race, and [have] done much to make the white people of the North believe” in racial equality and the “natural capacity of colored persons.” He also stressed that education was the surest safeguard against those “designing men” who posed an ongoing threat against black freedom in the South.24 These were reasons why ministers argued that every church ought to have a Sabbath school to secure the needs of future generations. At the time Emanuel was constructing its first building, it already maintained two Sunday schools that served 340 students. The major problem it faced was a serious shortage of books, paper, and teachers.25 Higher-level education was also required to increase the ranks of professionally trained and qualified ministers. South Carolina ministers and church members, including those at Emanuel, financially supported Wilberforce University, the denomination’s college in Ohio. There were also those Carolinians who saw the need to offer advanced educational opportunities closer to home. To that end, in 1871, the Payne Institute was established in Cokesbury in Greenwood County. In 1880–1881, the college was transferred to the more central location of Columbia and renamed Allen University, after the founder of the denomination. At this time the school added a law department, which graduated its first class in 1884. Allen University was the first college in the state established and maintained by African Americans.26
