The African Methodist Episcopal Church
A History

Explores the emergence of African Methodism within the black Atlantic and how it struggled to sustain its liberationist identity.

Dennis C. Dickerson (Author)

9780521191524, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 9 January 2020

610 pages, 19 b/w illus.
23.5 x 16.2 x 3.6 cm, 0.96 kg

'… Dickerson's book is a masterfully crafted contribution to the field of African American religious history, and it will serve as a resource to both scholars and non-scholars alike for many, many years to come.' Ahmad Greene-Hayes, The Journal of Ecclesiastical History

In this book, Dennis C. Dickerson examines the long history of the African Methodist Episcopal Church and its intersection with major social movements over more than two centuries. Beginning as a religious movement in the late eighteenth century, the African Methodist Episcopal Church developed as a freedom advocate for blacks in the Atlantic World. Governance of a proud black ecclesia often clashed with its commitment to and resources for fighting slavery, segregation, and colonialism, thus limiting the full realization of the church's emancipationist ethos. Dickerson recounts how this black institution nonetheless weathered the inexorable demands produced by the Civil War, two world wars, the civil rights movement, African decolonization, and women's empowerment, resulting in its global prominence in the contemporary world. His book also integrates the history of African Methodism within the broader historical landscape of American and African-American history.

Introduction
1. Richard Allen and the rise of African Methodism in the Atlantic World, 1760–1831
2. The freedom church, 1831–1861
3. 'Welcomed and ransomed', 1861–1880
4. A denomination in the diaspora, 1880–1916
5. Into the second century
6. Freedom now!
7. Becoming a global church, 1976–2018
Epilogue.

Subject Areas: Religious groups: social & cultural aspects [JFSR], History of religion [HRAX], Slavery & abolition of slavery [HBTS], 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000 [HBLW], Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900 [HBLL]