300 Political Activity and Resistance to Oppression: From the American Revolution to the Civil War
church’s many projects, including senior housing, a school,
and many other commercial and residential endeavors that
have signifi cantly contributed to the revitalization of the Ja-
maica, New York, neighborhood in which it resides.
See also: Allen, Richard; Black Churches; Jones, AbsalomPearl BatesBibliography
Dickerson, Dennis. A Liberated Past: Explorations in AME Church
History. Nashville, TN: AMEC Sunday School Union, 2003.
Dickerson, Dennis. Research Notes on A.M.E. Church History.
Nashville, TN: AMEC Sunday School Union/Publishing
House, 1995.
Payne, Daniel A. History of the African Methodist Episcopal Church.
Nashville, TN: AMEC Sunday School Union/Legacy Pub-
lishing, 1998.
Publication Committee. Th e Doctrine and Discipline of the AME
Church 2004–2008. Nashville, TN: AMEC Sunday School
Union, 2004.
Redkey, Edwin S. “Bishop Turner’s African Dream.” Journal of
American History (September 1967):271–90.
Reid, D. D., Jr., and Robert Henry. Irony of Afro-American History.
Nashville, TN: AME Publishing House, 1984.Allen, Richard
Richard Allen (1760–1831) was the founder of the Afri-
can Methodist Episcopal Church. A civic leader, social re-
former, and memoirist, Allen emerged as one of the most
important African Americans of the 19th century. Born
into slavery in Philadelphia, Allen was sold at the age of
eight to Stokely Sturgis, a fi nancially struggling Delaware
planter. During his early teen years, Allen lost his mother
and several of his siblings when Sturgis was forced to sell
them in order to pay off his debts. Some time later, Richard
and his brother experienced an encounter with an itinerant
Methodist minister. During the late 19th century, Meth-
odist preachers were slowly spreading their version of the
gospel message among enslaved blacks. Th e preacher who
evangelized to Allen was successful, converting both him
and his brother with a message of salvation and freedom.
Following his conversion, Allen doubled his labors
for Sturgis. Although he was unconverted, Sturgis was in-
trigued by Allen’s renewed work ethic following conver-
sion. At Allen’s request, Sturgis opened his home to other
traveling Methodists, including the legendary Francis As-
bury, founding father of the Methodist Episcopal ChurchTh e Rev. Archibald J. Carey Jr. was an early infl uencer of
the Committee of Racial Equality (CORE), later renamed
the Congress of Racial Equality, headed by James Farmer.
Trained as a lawyer, Rev. Carey advised the organization in
its eff orts to combat racism in the Chicago area. He was
friend and mentor to Bernice Fisher, one of CORE’s found-
ers. He also participated in the American delegation to the
United Nations under President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Rev. Carey was a confi dante of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther
King Jr. and participated in the Selma-to-Montgomery
march at Dr. King’s behest.
Rev. Carey, a contemporary of the Rev. Adam Clayton
Powell Jr., the pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in
Harlem and a New York congressman, was known to be an
eff ective activist and preacher, and he contributed to the
Republican Party and addressed the 1952 Republican Na-
tional Convention. Several of Rev. Carey’s sermon themes
and content were duplicated in Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s
sermons.
Th e Rev. Joseph A. Delaine’s activism in South Caro-
lina was the prototype from which the Brown v. Board of
Education case derived. An active participant in the area’s
NAACP, Delaine participated in cases involving black stu-
dents’ relatively poor access to school bus transportation in
comparison with their white counterparts. Th e most prom-
inent case, Briggs v. Elliott, also known as the Clarendon
County case, led the courts to acknowledge the inequality
of segregated school systems.
Th e Rev. Dr. James Cone is an AME preacher and
theologian. His 1969 book, Black Th eology and Black Power,
articulated a black liberation theology that challenged
Euro-centric models of deriving theological claims. Th e
book gave credence to the experience of African Americans
as a starting point for doing theology. Th e Rev. Dr. Jacque-
line Grant and Rev. Dr. Renita J. Weems have also been in
the forefront of advancing new norms for theological in-
quiry, particularly for African American women through
womanist studies.
Th e Rev. Dr. Floyd H. Flake, a graduate and the cur-
rent president of Wilberforce University, served as a U.S.
congressman from New York from 1987 to 1997. His du-
ties as congressman did not detract from, but enhanced, his
pastorate at the Greater Allen AME Cathedral in Jamaica,
New York. Because of his extensive contacts and knowledge
of available resources for community development, Dr.
Flake has been able to garner funding and support for the