Commencing with 1883, the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, took definite and forward steps for the education of the Negro. A Board of Trustees was appointed in co-operation with the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1884, Paine Institute was founded at Augusta, Georgia, and contributions of over $90,000 have been contributed to that school. Lane College, Jackson, Tennessee, has also been aided. The Colored Methodist Episcopal Church has seven schools with an enrollment of 2,509 and an annual income of $113,830. Fifty-seven students of theology are taught in two schools and college courses are offered in several of their institutions.
We have yet to speak of the work of the Methodist Episcopal Church. When freedom came, as we have seen, this church had (1864) 18,139 Negro members principally in Maryland, Delaware and adjacent territory. The Negro membership in this branch of Methodism now (1923) in the United States is 385,444.
As the way opened during and following the Civil War to reach the masses of the South both white and Negro, the Methodist Episcopal Church extended its work of reorganization southward among both races. Her Bishops and other church officials organized missions and conferences and opened up schools. Each benevolent society of the church aided financially. The support of pastors was supplemented by the Missionary Society; the Board of Church Extension aided in building houses of worship; the Sunday School Union and Tract Society gave their co-operation, and the Freedmen's Aid and the Southern Educational Society, now the Board of Education for Negroes, and the Woman's Home Missionary Society developed the educational work. In 1864, the Negro work in Maryland, Delaware and adjacent territories was organized into the Washington and Delaware Annual Conferences. In the other border States where the Negro membership was small, the preachers with their congregations were admitted into white conferences. With unwavering and magnificent purpose for over half a century, with fraternity and co-operation for all other churches in the same field, and impelled by a conviction of duty to needy millions irrespective of race, this branch of Methodism has gone forward with its work of education and evangelization irrespective of race. The results have been very remarkable. The white membership has grown on what was slave territory from 87,804 in 1860 to 475,641 in 1922; while the Negro membership in the same territory has increased from 18,139 in 1864 to 370,477 in 1922.
Following the wishes of both races the policy of separate conferences, churches and schools has been carried out in the South. There are several strong Negro churches in white conferences in the North. The New Conference elected Dr. W. H. Brooks, one of its Negro pastors, a delegate to the General Conference in 1920. The Methodist Episcopal Church has thirty-seven annual conferences in the Southern States with properties in parsonages, churches, schools of different grades, hospitals, and the like valued at $63,495,130.00. In 1856 the property of this church of all kinds in the same territory was less than $2,000,000. Seventeen of these conferences include the work among white people, and nineteen, the work among Negroes; and each group of conferences covers the Southern States from Delaware to Texas.
The twenty annual conferences in the South among Negroes have properties in parsonages and churches valued at $19,767,430. There are also thirty-two Negro institutions of learning in these twenty conferences with enrollment of 8,868 and lands with buildings and equipment valued at $6,522,642. The outstanding professional and collegiate institutions for Negroes are Gammon Theological Seminary, Atlanta, Meharry Medical College, Nashville, and colleges in several of the principal cities of the South. The total church properties named above, in Negro Methodist Conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church on former slave territory, is $25,218,230.00. These conferences raised $1,500,000 during three years from 1870 to 1872 for general church work at home and in foreign fields outside of pastoral and other local church expenses.[16]
There is no separation on account of race in annual conferences, churches or schools in the Methodist Episcopal Church, except as desired and requested by those interested. As the result of many petitions and extended discussions the General Conference, which met in 1876, in Baltimore, passed a law that the annual conferences in the Southern States which had both Negro and white members could separate, provided each group voted in favor of it. Under this action with few exceptions the division was made, where desired. The same law prevails in reference to churches and schools. The nineteen Negro conferences have ninety-two delegates in the General Conference, the law-making body for the whole church. These delegates have representation in all legislation. One or more Negro ministers or laymen are on each of the general boards of the church—publication, education, missions—home and foreign, Epworth League, and the like. Nearly a score of able and effective Negro men and women are official representatives of the general church boards in their work among the Negro conferences.
Six Negroes have been elected bishops in the Methodist Episcopal Church. Four were missionary bishops, with full episcopal authority on the continent of Africa. Of these Bishop Scott remains and is on the retired list. In their fields these bishops were not subordinate but coordinate with general superintendents. Their episcopal work was of the same type as that of William Taylor, James Thoburn, Oldham, Warne, and Hartzell, white missionary bishops in Africa and India.
The General Conference in 1920 elected Robert E. Jones and Matthew W. Clair general superintendents. The former has his episcopal residence in New Orleans and the latter in Liberia. They preside in turn at the semiannual conferences of the Board of Bishops and will preside at the General Conference in 1924.
The great mass of Negro Christians in the United States will continue to prefer churches made up of their own race. This is natural and on the whole the best for many reasons. On the other hand, the door of every church of Christ should be open for all. At present in twenty-nine white Protestant churches in the United States with a total membership of over 4,000,000, there are 579,690 Negro members. Nearly three-fourths of that membership are in the Methodist Episcopal Church.
The total Negro Methodist Church membership in the United States is 1,756,714. Of that number 1,330,409 are in the African Methodist Episcopal, the African Methodist Episcopal Zion and the Colored Methodist Episcopal Churches; 385,444 in the Methodist Episcopal Church and 41,961 in seven smaller African bodies. If we multiply the total membership by 2½ we have 4,557,117, which represents, approximately, the enrolled membership and constituency of Negro Methodism in the United States.