Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church
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Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, colloquially Mother Emanuel, is a church in
Charleston, South Carolina Charleston is the List of municipalities in South Carolina, most populous city in the U.S. state of South Carolina. The city lies just south of the geographical midpoint of South Carolina's coastline on Charleston Harbor, an inlet of the Atla ...
, founded in 1817. It is the oldest AME church in the
Southern United States The Southern United States (sometimes Dixie, also referred to as the Southern States, the American South, the Southland, Dixieland, or simply the South) is List of regions of the United States, census regions defined by the United States Cens ...
; founded the previous year in
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, Pennsylvania, AME was the first independent black denomination in the nation. Mother Emanuel has one of the oldest black congregations south of
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(black
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churches were founded in South Carolina and
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before the
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).


History


History and foundation

In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century Great Awakenings, Baptist and Methodist missionaries had evangelized among both enslaved and free African Americans in the South, as well as whites. Blacks were welcomed as members of the new churches and some leaders were licensed as preachers. But the white-dominated churches generally maintained control of their institutions and often relegated blacks to segregated galleries or separate services, scheduled at alternative times or in such locations as church basements. State law and city ordinance required lawful churches to be led by whites. African-American members, most of whom were enslaved, were allowed to hold separate services in those churches, usually in the basements. In Charleston in the nineteenth century, the white-dominated churches had increasingly discriminated against blacks. A dispute arose after white leaders of Bethel Methodist authorized construction of a hearse house over its black burial ground. Black congregants were outraged. In 1818 church leader Morris Brown left this church in protest. Nearly 2,000 Black members from the city's three Methodist churches soon followed him to create a new church. They founded a church known first as the Hampstead Church on Reid and Hanover streets. (Dates of founding have been given as 1816, when the national denomination was founded,. 1817, when Morris Brown traveled to Philadelphia to meet with Allen and other founders, and was ordained as a deacon, or 1818.) The congregation was made up of African Americans who were former members of Charleston's three Methodist Episcopal churches. Hampstead Church was considered part of the "Bethel circuit" of the
African Methodist Episcopal Church The African Methodist Episcopal Church, usually called the AME Church or AME, is a Methodist denomination based in the United States. It adheres to Wesleyan theology, Wesleyan–Arminian theology and has a connexionalism, connexional polity. It ...
, the newly established, first independent black denomination in the United States. It was founded in 1816 in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...
by Richard Allen and delegates from some other black churches. State and city ordinances at the time limited worship services by black people to daylight hours, required that a majority of congregants in a given church be white, and prohibited black literacy. In 1818, Charleston officials arrested 140 black church members and sentenced eight church leaders to fines and lashes. City officials again raided Emanuel AME Church in 1820 and 1821 in a pattern of harassment. In June 1822, Denmark Vesey, one of the church's founders, was implicated in an alleged slave revolt plot. Vesey and five other organizers were rapidly convicted in a
show trial A show trial is a public trial in which the guilt (law), guilt or innocence of the defendant has already been determined. The purpose of holding a show trial is to present both accusation and verdict to the public, serving as an example and a d ...
, and executed on July 2 after a secret trial. The city conducted additional trials over the following weeks, as the number of suspects increased while men were interrogated. They ultimately convicted and executed more than 30 men, and deported other suspected participants from the state, including Vesey's son. The original Emanuel AME church was burned down that year by a crowd of angry whites. After the congregation met secretly for a period, it rebuilt the church after the Civil War. Rev. Morris Brown was imprisoned for many months, though never convicted of any crime. Upon his release, he and several other prominent members fled to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Others managed to reconstitute the congregation in a few years. In reaction to Nat Turner's slave rebellion of 1831, in 1834 the white-run city of Charleston outlawed all-black churches. The AME congregation met in secret until the end of the Civil War in 1865.


After the Civil War

After the war ended, AME Bishop Daniel Payne installed the Reverend Richard H. Cain as the pastor of the congregation that would become Emanuel ("God with us") AME and Morris Brown AME In 1872, after serving in the South Carolina Senate (1868–72), Cain was elected as a Republican Congressman in the U.S. House of Representatives, continuing a tradition of religious leaders serving in political positions. The congregation rebuilt the church between 1865 and 1872 as a wooden structure, under the lead of the architect Robert Vesey, the son of abolitionist and church co-founder Denmark Vesey. After an earthquake demolished that building in 1886, President
Grover Cleveland Stephen Grover Cleveland (March 18, 1837June 24, 1908) was the 22nd and 24th president of the United States, serving from 1885 to 1889 and from 1893 to 1897. He was the first U.S. president to serve nonconsecutive terms and the first Hist ...
donated ten dollars to the church to aid its rebuilding efforts. He wrote that he was "very glad to contribute something for so worthy a cause." A Democrat, Cleveland also donated 20 dollars to the Confederate Home, a "haven for white widows."Susan Millar Williams and Stephen G. Hoffus, ''Upheaval in Charleston: Earthquake and Murder on the Eve of Jim Crow,'' University of Georgia Press, 2011: 158. The current brick and stucco building was constructed in 1891 on Calhoun Street. This and other post-Civil War black churches were built on the north side of Calhoun Street. Blacks were not welcome on the south side of what was known as Boundary Street when the church was built. The building was designed by leading Charleston architect John Henry Devereux; the work was begun in the spring of 1891 and completed in 1892.


20th century

In March 1909, Booker T. Washington, president of
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and a national leader, spoke at Emanuel AME Church.David H. Jackson Jr., "Booker T. Washington in South Carolina, March 1909." ''The South Carolina Historical Magazine'' 113.3 (July 2012): 192-220. Among the attendees were many whites, including a member of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania and Robert Goodwyn Rhett, the mayor of Charleston; he was a lawyer and controlling owner of the ''News and Courier'' newspaper. By 1951, the church had 2,400 members and completed a $47,000 ($ in dollars) renovation project. This earned an "outstanding improvement" award from the Charleston Chamber of Commerce. At a 1962 church meeting, Reverends Martin Luther King Jr. and Wyatt T. Walker of the
Southern Christian Leadership Conference The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) is an African Americans, African-American civil rights organization based in Atlanta, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. SCLC is closely associated with its first president, Martin Luther King Jr., ...
were guest speakers, urging church members to register and vote. At the time, most African Americans in the South were still disenfranchised, which they had been since the turn of the century when the white-dominated legislatures passed restrictive conditions raising barriers to voter registration in new constitutions and laws. In 1969 Coretta Scott King, then widowed after King's assassination, led a march of some 1,500 demonstrators to the church in support of striking hospital workers in Charleston. At the church, they faced bayonet-wielding members of the South Carolina National Guard; the church's pastor and 900 demonstrators were arrested. The church building was damaged in Hurricane Hugo in 1989. Although major repairs were made, the tin roof soon rusted and leaked. It was changed out for interlocking copper shingles.


21st century

As of 2008, the church had more than 1,600 members and assisted the Charleston Interfaith Crisis Ministry and other charities. The church is involved in the local arts community, including hosting an art show in 2013 and concerts by the Charleston Symphony Orchestra Gospel Choir. In 2010, senior pastor and state senator Rev. Clementa Pinckney was noted as following in the tradition of earlier church leaders, such as the Reverend Richard H. Cain of the 19th century, in serving as both a religious and political leader. On December 31, 2012, the church held a watchnight service; they celebrated the 150th anniversary of the
Emancipation Proclamation The Emancipation Proclamation, officially Proclamation 95, was a presidential proclamation and executive order issued by United States President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, during the American Civil War. The Proclamation had the eff ...
, which was issued on January 1, 1863. Charleston's annual Emancipation Day Parade on January 1 ends at Emanuel AME Church.


2015 shooting

On June 17, 2015, nine people were shot and killed inside Mother Emanuel. The victims included South Carolina State Senator Clementa Pinckney, senior pastor, and eight members of his congregation: Cynthia Hurd, Depayne Middleton-Doctor, Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, Susie Jackson, Myra Thompson, Tywanza Sanders, Ethel Lance, and Daniel Simmons. There was a tenth victim who was also shot but survived. Dylann Roof, a 21-year-old white male, was arrested shortly afterwards and charged with nine counts of murder. The killings were investigated by state and federal law enforcement officials as a possible hate crime, and it was found that they were. According to the
FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and Federal law enforcement in the United States, its principal federal law enforcement ag ...
, Roof left a manifesto detailing his racist views on the lastrhodesian.com website before the shooting. The church, on its own website, refers to Roof as "the stranger". In December 2016, Roof was convicted of 33 federal hate crime and
murder Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification (jurisprudence), justification or valid excuse (legal), excuse committed with the necessary Intention (criminal law), intention as defined by the law in a specific jurisd ...
charges. On January 10, 2017, he was sentenced to death by lethal injection for those crimes. Roof was separately charged with nine counts of murder in the
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state courts. In April 2017, Roof pleaded guilty to all nine state charges in order to avoid receiving a second death sentence, and as a result, he was sentenced to
life imprisonment Life imprisonment is any sentence (law), sentence of imprisonment under which the convicted individual is to remain incarcerated for the rest of their natural life (or until pardoned or commuted to a fixed term). Crimes that result in life impr ...
without the possibility of
parole Parole, also known as provisional release, supervised release, or being on paper, is a form of early release of a prisoner, prison inmate where the prisoner agrees to abide by behavioral conditions, including checking-in with their designated ...
. While he will receive automatic appeals of his death sentence, he may eventually be executed by the federal justice system in the Terre Haute,
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death chamber.


After the 2015 shooting

The Rev. Dr. Norvel Goff Sr. served as the interim pastor from June 17, 2015, until early 2016. On January 23, 2016, The Rev. Dr. Betty Deas Clark was appointed pastor. She was the first woman to lead the congregation in its 200-year existence. Currently, The Rev. Eric C. Manning serves as Senior Pastor.


Building

Built in 1891, Emanuel AME Church has one of the few well-preserved historic church interiors in the area, with original features including the altar, communion rail, pews, and light fixtures. In December 2014, the church publicized fundraising to build an elevator to make the building more accessible. A pipe organ was installed in 1902. The church has a capacity of 2,500, making it among Charleston's largest black churches. It was listed on the
National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...
in 2018. In 2014 the building was determined to suffer from termite infestation, which had resulted in "severe structural deterioration." The church received a $12,330 federal historic preservation grant from the state of South Carolina to complete a structural investigation in May 2014.


Documentary

A producer of a documentary film, ''The AME Movement: African Methodism in South Carolina'', that describes the history of the AME church movement in South Carolina, held a
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fundraising campaign in 2013, but failed to reach his goal. Various interviews were conducted and filmed for the documentary.


In popular culture

Tyehimba Jess's 2015 book ''Olio'' mentions both the 1822 burning of the church and the 2015 shooting. The book of poetry and music begins and ends, respectively, with these events.


References


External links

*
Emanuel AME Church
at the
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{{Authority control 1891 establishments in South Carolina African-American history in Charleston, South Carolina African Methodist Episcopal churches in South Carolina Charleston church shooting Churches in Charleston, South Carolina Churches completed in 1891 Gothic Revival architecture in South Carolina Historic district contributing properties in South Carolina National Register of Historic Places in Charleston, South Carolina Churches on the National Register of Historic Places in South Carolina