Charleston’s Emanuel AME Church

[struggle4progress]

For Charleston’s Emanuel AME Church, shooting is another painful chapter in rich history
By Sarah Kaplan
June 18

... It was founded by worshipers fleeing racism and burned to the ground for its connection with a thwarted slave revolt. For years, its meetings were conducted in secret to evade laws that banned all-black services. It was jolted by an earthquake in 1886. Civil rights luminaries spoke from its pulpit and led marches from its steps. For nearly 200 years it had been the site of struggle, resistance and change ... “It’s not just a church. It’s also a symbol … of black freedom,” said Robert Greene, who studies the 20th century South at the University of South Carolina ... The congregation was founded in the era of slavery by Morris Brown, a founding pastor of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1816, frustrated with the racism he encountered in Charleston’s segregated churches, Brown decided to form a church of his own. About 4,000 parishioners followed him — more than 75 percent of the city’s black community ... Denmark Vesey ... was a leader in the church. He fiercely and insistently preached that African Americans were the new Israelites, that their enslavement would be punished with death, and in 1822 he and other leaders began plotting a rebellion ...But another member of the church, a slave named George Wilson, told his master about the plot. Nearly three dozen organizers — including Vesey — were put on trial and executed, while another 60 were banished from the city. Believing that “black religion” had caused the uprising, South Carolina instituted a series of draconian measures against African American churches and communities, including a ban on services conducted without a white person present ...

[cbayer]

1. I heard a great story about this in NPR the other morning.

It's a really moving history. Thanks for posting it.