The following twenty years were crowded with far-reaching events in church and state, as affecting the Negro. Each of the three divisions of Methodism had its place according to its convictions during that twenty years of agitation and war. The distinctly Negro organizations in the North, while having slaves in their own communions, were, of course, anti-slavery in principle, and sought in every way to advance the cause of abolitionism. Outside of Maryland and Delaware they had no churches in the South, except one in New Orleans and one in Louisville. A church organized in Charleston was driven out, after an attempted Negro insurrection. Permission was given by the mayor of St. Louis to one of its ministers to preach in that city, but the permit was afterwards recalled on learning the sentiments of his church.[12]
During this period of twenty years the Methodist Episcopal Church had wonderful growth throughout the North and West in membership, church buildings, publishing interests, educational institutions, and in social and moral power. Her entire membership rose from 644,294 to 1,032,184. Her Negro membership, however, steadily declined. In 1846 it numbered, as we have seen, 30,516, while in 1865 at the close of the Civil War there were only 18,139. Shut away from the large Negro populations of the South, and confronted with aggressive African Methodism among the smaller Negro population in the North calling for separation from the whites in ecclesiastical organization and government, the field of operation of the Methodist Episcopal Church was necessarily proscribed among Africa's sons and daughters. She was, however, faithful to her trust and retained her Negro membership in church and conference relations, and, as the years went by, became more and more permeated with sentiments of antagonism to slavery, both as related to the church and the nation.
To this branch of Methodism, moreover, belongs the honor of establishing the first Methodist institution of higher learning for the education of colored people. In 1855 the Cincinnati Annual Conference appointed the Rev. John F. Wright as agent "to take incipient steps for a college for colored people." In two years Wilberforce University, near Xenia, Ohio, was established, with fifty-two acres of land and large and commodious buildings. The next year the Visiting Committee of the Conference reported the school in a flourishing condition, and said: "The examinations showed conclusively that the minds of the present class of students are capable of a very high degree of cultivation." Under the presidency of Rev. R. S. Rust the school was successful until financial embarrassment compelled suspension in 1863. One reason given was the War, and the consequent difficulty of obtaining funds from the South. From the beginning, the friendly co-operation of the African Methodist Episcopal Church was encouraged and received. Fortunately the leaders of that denomination were able to assume the indebtedness which was a nominal sum as compared with the value of the property. The lands and buildings were transferred with the good wishes and prayers of the Methodist Episcopal Church, ministry, and people, and Wilberforce University became, and continues to be, the chief educational center of African Methodism in the United States.[13]
Freed from all embarrassments from connectional relations with abolition sentiment the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, prospered in its way. Her territory was rapidly extending westward and southwestward, population and wealth were increasing, and slavery being embedded in the national and state constitutions, pro-slavery sentiment prevailed without question. Her total membership from 1846 to 1861 advanced from 449,654 to 703,295. This was, in fifteen years, an increase of 162,749. Dividing this increase by races, we find that among white people the growth was from 330,710 in 1846 to 493,459 in 1861, being an increase of 162,749. During the same period the Negro membership went from 118,904 to 209,836, being an increase of 90,932. Efforts to increase the slave membership in connection with the regular charges were continued with encouraging results, and the plantation mission work among the slaves was prosecuted with gratifying success. The largest figures were reached in 1861, when there were 329 Negro missions throughout the South, with 327 missionaries and 66,559 members. It is estimated that the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, from 1844 to 1864, when freedom came, expended $1,800,000 in plantation work among the slaves.[14]
The sudden emancipation of almost 4,000,000 Negro slaves meant new and tremendous responsibilities for the loyal and philanthropic people of the Northern States. The churches and benevolent organizations of the South had all shared largely in the demoralization caused by the Civil War, and were without financial resources. Neither was it reasonable to expect that the Southern people would do for free Negroes what they had done for them when slaves, much less enter upon the absolutely necessary missionary movement, to prepare the newly enfranchised for the responsibilities incident to freedom.
For more than half a century, outside of what the general and State governments have done or attempted to do, the tide of philanthropic and Christian aid for the Negro has gone Southward, and will continue as long as needed. How many million dollars have been expended by churches, educational boards and individual philanthropists has not been computed. Neither has anyone attempted to measure the results of the work of the many consecrated men and women, who have given and are still giving their lives for the uplift of the Negro race since emancipation. The results are manifest. Already the advance of this people since freedom in morality, intellectual development and economic success has no parallel, in the same time, in the history of any other race.
The Methodist Episcopal Church and the two large branches of African Methodism were in the fore-front of this movement from the beginning. The African Methodist Episcopal Church had at first its chief increase in the South along the Atlantic Coast, especially in South Carolina and Florida. Bishop Arnett, the statistician of that denomination, estimates that 75,000 of the Negro membership of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, transferred their church relations to that denomination. The African Zion Church as a factor in the South had its beginning in North Carolina and Alabama. It is estimated that at least 25,000 of the Southern Negro members united with this branch. Both of these sections of African Methodism have continued to prosecute their work of evangelization and education throughout the South, as well as the North, and continue powerful factors in the evangelistic forces of American Methodism as related to the Negro. In 1921-22 the membership of the African Methodist Episcopal Church was 550,776; and that of the African M. E. Zion Church was 412,328.[15]
The policy of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, toward the Negro Freedmen took definite form in 1866. At the General Conference held that year at New Orleans, provision was made for the organization of its remaining Negro membership into "separate congregations and districts, and annual conferences." If the colored people should desire, and two or more Negro annual conferences be formed, a separate ecclesiastical autonomy would be granted. The reasons for the organization of this new separate Negro Methodism are given in its Book of Discipline over the signature of its first four Bishops. They say that the Southern Methodist Conference "found that, by revolution and the fortunes of war, a change had taken place in our political and social relations, which made it necessary that a like change should also be made in our ecclesiastical relations." The result was that, in 1871, the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church of America was organized to be composed exclusively of Negroes, and officered entirely by members of this race. Here we have the beginning of a third large section of African Methodism. The new organization started with 80,000 members made up of nearly all who still remained in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South.
It would be very interesting to speculate as to the probable results, could the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, have continued its work among the Freedmen, which it had for years carried forward with such excellent results among the slaves. But it is no part of this paper to criticize or philosophize. This branch of Methodism, second in numbers and influence in the nation, with all but 30,000 of its members in the South, now has 2,239,151 members, a few of whom are Negroes.