A Social History of the American Negro - Being a History of the Negro Problem in the United States. Including - A History and Study of the Republic of Liberia by Benjamin Brawley
page 92 of 545 (16%)
page 92 of 545 (16%)
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69-97.]
While Bryan was working in Savannah, in Richmond, Va., rose Lott Cary, a man of massive and erect frame and of great personality. Born a slave in 1780, Cary worked for a number of years in a tobacco factory, leading a wicked life. Converted in 1807, he made rapid advance in education and he was licensed as a Baptist preacher. He purchased his own freedom and that of his children (his first wife having died), organized a missionary society, and then in 1821 himself went as a missionary to the new colony of Liberia, in whose interest he worked heroically until his death in 1828. More clearly defined than the origin of Negro Baptist churches are the beginnings of African Methodism. Almost from the time of its introduction in the country Methodism made converts among the Negroes and in 1786 there were nearly two thousand Negroes in the regular churches of the denomination, which, like the Baptist denomination, it must be remembered, was before the Revolution largely overshadowed in official circles by the Protestant Episcopal Church. The general embarrassment of the Episcopal Church in America in connection with the war, and the departure of many loyalist ministers, gave opportunity to other denominations as well as to certain bodies of Negroes. The white members of St. George's Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia, however, determined to set apart its Negro membership and to segregate it in the gallery. Then in 1787 came a day when the Negroes, choosing not to be insulted, and led by Richard Allen and Absalom Jones, left the edifice, and with these two men as overseers on April 17 organized the Free African Society. This was intended to be "without regard to religious tenets," the members being banded together "to support one another in sickness and for the benefit of their widows and fatherless |
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