First African Methodist Episcopal Zion is Portland's oldest African American church. Founded in 1862 as the People’s Church, the congregation first met in Mary Carr’s boardinghouse on First Ave near "A" Street (now Ankeny Street) on the west waterfront. The congregation moved three more times—including to North Williams Avenue—before settling on North Vancouver and Skidmore in the late 1960s. The church has a long tradition of faith-based community service and support, including advocating for the elimination of exclusion laws from the Oregon Constitution and for civil rights.
The AME Zion Church was officially established in New York City in 1821 by free Blacks who wanted to escape the segregationist practices of Methodist churches, most of which had white ministers. In 1822, James Varick was named the first African American AME Zion ordained bishop. Most AME Zion churches were located in Northern states before the American Civil War. After the war, the church established congregations throughout the nation, primarily in the South.
During the late nineteenth century, Oregon’s Black population was small—only 487 in 1880—and church services were held in the homes of church members. In 1869, the Portland AME Zion congregation purchased property on Northwest Third Street between "B" and "C" Streets (now Burnside and Couch). Construction on the building began on June 3, 1869. The church was incorporated as the First African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, and Reverend J.O. Lodge was appointed the first minister. In 1883, First AME Zion built a new church on Northwest Thirteenth and Main, the center of Portland’s growing Black population.
In 1893, Reverend T. Brown, pastor at First AME Zion, spearheaded a movement to remove racist exclusionary clauses from the Oregon Constitution. Working with State Representative Henry Northrup, Brown introduced three resolutions to the legislature that would nullify laws permitting the removal of African Americans and Chinese from the state. It was one of the first organized civil rights protests by Oregonians. The resolutions ultimately failed and the exclusionary laws remained in place for many years (the laws were nullifed in 1866 by the 14th Amendment, but the exclusionary language remained in the Oregon Constitution until 1924).
In 1916, First AME Zion moved to North Williams Avenue and Tillamook in the Albina neighborhood. It became part of a network of neighborhood churches that was active in defending and demanding civil rights in Portland. During the 1940s, acts of racism spiked when thousands of African American war industry workers moved into Portland and nearby Vanport. Black Portlanders organized to confront the racist policies and laws. Albina’s churches were essential in that effort, serving as meeting places, news and information centers, and temporary shelters. First AME Zion, for example, was one of many churches in Albina to take in displaced residents of Vanport after the 1948 flood destroyed their homes.
The network of African American churches continued to strengthen after the 1940s. In 1951, First AME Zion participated in the first interfaith service in Albina, led by Reverend J.F. Smith and others, including Reverend O.B. Williams of Vancouver Avenue Baptist Church and Reverend J.J. Clow of Mt. Olivet Baptist Church. First AME Zion was also a founding member of the Albina Ministerial Association, a network of pastors formed to support African Americans in Albina during urban renewal in the 1950s and 1960s. As an important part of the civil rights coalition in Portland, the group met with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. when he visited the city in 1961. On August 30, 1967, when a riot broke out at Irving Park at what began as a political rally, the AMA was one of the first groups to respond, sending ministers to calm protesters.
First AME Zion is part of the Western Episcopal District. In 2014, George William Whitfield was appointed pastor, the youngest in the congregation's history. From its century-old church on North Vancouver (once the Norwegian Danish Methodist Church), it continues its legacy of civil rights activism and community involvement and education in Portland.
The most significant era of denominational development occurred during the Civil War and Reconstruction. Oftentimes, with the permission of Union army officials AME clergy moved into the states of the collapsing Confederacy to pull newly freed slaves into their denomination. “I Seek My Brethren,” the title of an often repeated sermon that Theophilus G. Steward preached in South Carolina, became a clarion call to evangelize fellow blacks in Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Texas, and many other parts of the south. Hence, in 1880 AME membership reached 400,000 because of its rapid spread below the Mason-Dixon line. When Bishop Henry M. Turner pushed African Methodism across the Atlantic into Liberia and Sierra Leone in 1891 and into South Africa in 1896, the AME now laid claim to adherents on two continents.
While the AME is doctrinally Methodist, clergy, scholars, and lay persons have written important works which demonstrate the distinctive theology and praxis which have defined this Wesleyan body. Bishop Benjamin W. Arnett, in an address to the 1893 World’s Parliament of Religions, reminded the audience of the presence of blacks 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 H. Cone, Cecil W. Cone, and Jacqueline Grant who came out of the AME tradition critiqued Euro-centric Christianity and African American churches for their shortcomings in fully impacting the plight of those oppressed by racism, sexism, and economic disadvantage.
Today, the African Methodist Episcopal Church has membership in twenty Episcopal Districts in thirty-nine countries on five continents. The work of the Church is administered by twenty-one active bishops, and nine General Officers who manage the departments of the Church.
Retired General Officer
First African Methodist Episcopal Church, Los Angeles, July 1, 2009
Courtesy Laurie Avocado (CC BY-SA 2.0)
The First African Methodist Episcopal (FAME) Church is today the oldest and one of the largest African American congregations in Los Angeles, California. It was founded in 1872 by Bridget (Biddy) Mason who arrived as a slave in Los Angeles with her owner in 1856. However, since California was a free state, Mason with the help of local black and white abolitionists, successfully sued in court to win her freedom.
In 1872, Mason organized the first FAME meeting in her own home, which twelve other people attended. The congregation remained very small and their meetings were held alternatively in the members’ homes. During the 1880s, as migration of both blacks and whites to Los Angeles increased, FAME Church became more popular, particularly among the middle class blacks. The first permanent church building was established in 1903 on Eighth and Tome in the African American business district. The gothic-style church became a community landmark.
Trouble faced FAME Church in 1915, when the popular Reverend Napoleon P. Greggs was removed by an AME Bishop, outraging many church members. Several left the church to form the Independent Church of Christ (later People’s Independent Church) with Greggs as minister. This schism destabilized the church but through the leadership of senior minister, Reverend J. Logan Craw, FAME quickly gained strength again as well as its prominence in the black community.
By the 1960s the area around the church became industrial and commercial, so relocation was sought. In 1969 the church moved to 2270 South Harvard Boulevard in Southwest Los Angeles where it remains today.
The number of active members remained under 200 until the arrival of former Seattle, Washington pastor Reverend Cecil L. Murray in 1977. Under his dynamic leadership, which lasted until his retirement in 2004, FAME was transformed. The membership grew to 18,000 and a greater emphasis was put on social welfare.
FAME Church had always been involved in the community, especially in regard to civil rights. During the late 1800s, FAME members became outraged by school segregation in Los Angeles. M. Horatius Martinez, a local attorney, went to court with the support of FAME Church members and won a legal decision that integrated local schools. In the 1960s, during the height of the Civil Rights Movement, the senior minister at FAME, Reverend H. Hartford Brookins, urged the members to become more involved. Through the support of FAME Church, Tom Bradley, a prominent church member, would become mayor of Los Angeles in 1973.
FAME Church continues it work in social welfare. The church spends over $2 million annually to support over 40 community programs, including housing and food for the homeless, legal assistance, and youth programs.
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Trsek, K. (2011, May 31). First African Methodist Episcopal Church, Los Angeles, California (1872- ). BlackPast.org. //www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/first-african-methodist-episcopal-church-1872/
Source of the author's information:
Darnell Hunt and Ana-Christina Ramón, eds., Black Los Angeles: American
Dreams and Racial Realities (New York: New York Press, 2010); Douglas
Flamming, Bound For Freedom: Black Los Angeles in the Jim Crow Era
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005); George Barna and Henry
R. Jackson Jr., High Impact African American Churches: Leadership
Concepts from Today’s Most Effective Churches (Ventura: Regal Books,
1989); Brent Alan Wood, First African Methodist Episcopal Church and Its
Social Intervention in South Central Los Angeles (Los Angeles:
University of Southern California Press, 1997).