History of AME church in Southern Africa

 

The beginnings of the AME in South Africa is influenced by Mangena Mokone, Charlotte Manye Maxeke, Jacobus G. Xaba, James Mata Dwane and the Ethiopian Movement.

Mangena Maake Mokone and other blacks, formerly in the Wesleyan Methodist Church, established the Ethiopian Church and laid foundations for an eventual union with the AMEs.  The common racial and religious origins of African Methodists on both continents resonated with ministers and members in the AME and Ethiopian churches and moved them, perhaps inevitably, toward merger.

Two local preachers elsewhere in the province in January 1893 also joined with Mokone. A black pastor in the Orange Free State, Jacobus G. Xaba, a Zulu, had been barred from his pulpit because of alleged disobedience to a white superior and then, with others, was arrested and incarcerated. Upon his release from custody, Xaba went to Pretoria to affiliate with the Mokone movement. Additionally, Joseph P. Kanyane, the leader of a dissident group of Anglican blacks, seemed no better off in their denomination than their counterparts in the Wesleyan Methodists Church. He, like Xaba and others, became the nucleus of the new Ethiopian Church.

As Mokone supervised the spread of the Ethiopian Church, Charlotte Manye Maxeke, a part of his kin and kinship connections, left for the United States to study at Wilberforce University. There she learned about “the great AME Church.” At the home of Manye’s sister in Johannesburg, Mokone saw Bishop Turner’s letterhead that Manye had obviously sent.

Charlotte Manye was born on 7 April 1873 at Fort Beaufort in the Cape Colony. Since her parents belonged to the Wesleyan Church, she received her early school training at the Wesleyan School in Uitenhage. From Uitenhage she embarked to continue her studies at Edward Memorial School in Port Elizabeth. While in Port Elizabeth, her family moved to Kimberley for better job prospects.Upon completion of her courses, she joined her parents and started teaching and music lessons.

Charlotte’s true joy was music. A certain Mr. Bam from Kimberley took cognisance of her singing talents and invited her for an African tour to England and then to the United States. The tour was organised to raise funds to build an industrial school for Africans. The England tour failed, not because of poor performances, but due to non-payment by the organisers. Campbell (1989) comments that: “From the outset, however, the choir was dogged by recriminations and allegations of broken promises”. When the organisers announced a second tour to the USA, Charlotte again joined the group. This time the tour lasted a whole year, but again it was faced with failure. The group disbanded in Cleveland, Ohio. Some came back to South Africa and others decided to stay in America. Charlotte was one of the people who wanted to stay to further her own education . In a sense, the failure of the tour and the accompanying hardship was a blessing in disguise. Charlotte realised her dream to be educated in America. The group was destitute in Ohio. Here they met up with the Reverend Reverdy Ransom, an ordained elder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. He took pity on them and accommodated them in one of the settlements his congregation had established for the destitute.

With the help of the AME Church Mission Department, the group registered at the University of Wilberforce in Ohio. During her first year at university in 1894, under the influence of Bishop McNeil Turner, she wrote to her aunt, Ms Kate Manye, living in Johannesburg. At the time of writing the letter, she had no idea what far-reaching effect this letter was going to have. She described life in America; the progress blacks were making, their fine homes, their educational institutions and naturally the AME Church. Ms Manye showed the letter to her uncle, the Reverend Mangena Mokone, who was then an ordained minister of the newly formed Ethiopian Movement. He was very impressed and wanted to know more about the independent African Methodist Episcopal Church in America. This letter was the instrument that brought African Methodism to South Africa. Reverend Mokone and Bishop Turner started corresponding and exchanged information regarding their respective churches. Charlotte completed her B.Sc degree, married Marshall Maxeke, a fellow student of South Africa, and returned home to start a school for boys in Pietersburg.

As Mokone wrote to him about sending two of his ministers to Wilberforce for further training. Later Mokone must have been greatly pleased that the Pittsburgh Annual Conference Branch of the WPMMS joined with the Ohio and North Ohio divisions in funding Manye, whom they called “that noble hearted African,” through her graduation from Wilberforce. Mokone also told Turner about the Ethiopian Church and that it “is entirely managed by us blacks of South Africa.” Turner, already a force behind AME expansion in West Africa, viewed the communication from Mokone as an opportunity for additional growth on the “mother continent.” Though the South African body had only seven ordained clergy and 2,500 members, Turner welcomed the prospect of bringing them into his denomination.

James Mata Dwane functioned as Mokone’s lieutenant and potential usurper in traveling to the United States in 1896 to effect amalgamation with the AME Church. He was a native of the Transkei out of the Gcaleka Xhosa tribe. In 1896 he arrived in the Untied States. Manye still in the United States  traveled within AME circles, and in 1900 participated in the annual convention of the Women's Parent Mite Missionary Society (WPMMS)’s Pittsburgh Conference Branch. Dwane, like Manye, saw what the AMEs had to offer. He met them at the imposing Mother Bethel Church in Philadelphia, other churches in New York, Washington DC, and on to Atlanta to meet Bishop Turner, Secretary of Missions Henry B. Parks, and Joseph S. Flipper, the pastor of Allen Temple, a leading congregation among Georgia AMEs. At a special session of the North Georgia Annual Conference, Turner ordained Dwane as an itinerant elder and authorized him to confer the same status upon other Ethiopian clergy. These actions would fully incorporate the Mokone movement into the AME Church. Turner also appointed Dwane as general superintendent of the AME Church in South Africa. After the Council of Bishops approved his visit to South Africa in 1897, he planned his trip for February 1898. His arrival sparked an electrifying response as blacks journeyed long distances to see a black bishop. He raised the number of ordained clergy to over fifty, authorized the founding of a school, and recognized the South African and Transvaal Annual Conferences.

Most importantly, he named Dwane as a vicar bishop, a move that sidelined Mokone and angered fellow ministers. Nonetheless, Turner and Dwane in 1898 and 1899 experienced the exhilaration of the AME presence in South Africa. On the published minutes of Turner’s Georgia annual conferences appeared his “Associate” the “Rt. Rev. James M. Dwane, Vicar Bishop,” underneath his name. At the 1898 North Georgia Annual Conference Turner discussed his recent travels to South Africa and “the urgent necessity which forced him to ordain a vicar bishop” and “the glorious future which awaited the African M.E. Church.” Dwane, a late arrival to the meeting, addressed the assembly referring to AME Church influence “among the common people” and their tribal rulers in South Africa. He appealed for help to build a college and exposed the audience to his facility with the native and Dutch languages. In a later session, Dwane, “dressed in his episcopal robe,” sang a hymn in “his native language,” and then ascended the pulpit to preach. He refuted accusations that “Christianity has been more injurious to the natives of Africa than a blessing.” Such charges surely applied to “the missionaries themselves,” but not to the African Methodists who came to the “mother” continent as racial compatriots. Turner and Dwane showed that their partnership had yielded 10,800 members in two annual conferences.

The majority of the Council of Bishops approved Turner’s appointment of Dwane as a vicar bishop despite a strong dissent from Bishop Wesley J. Gaines. The ensuing debate, however, proved futile. Dwane’s elevation stirred discontent among his colleagues. Although Gaines’ criticism on Turner was a bone of contention for a long time, the Bishops’ Council approved Turner’s action. At the same Council it was also approved that Turner be allocated $5,000 as a token of appreciation for the work he has done in South Africa. However, the action of Turner had far reaching consequences on the future of the AME Church in South Africa. Convinced that injustices were meted out to him on the part of the AME Church, Dwane called together the Queenstown Annual Conference in October 1899. Members of the Cape Annual Conference were also invited. Dwane spelled out why it became necessary to sever ties with the AME Church. He disclosed three reasons for his secession.

• The first reason was the effects of Bishop Gaines’ letter, which was widely  circulated. Bishop Gaines’ evoked hostility among white missionaries, but was also taken as the reason for the Cape Colony not to recognise the AME Church. Furthermore, the letter influenced a number of prospective donors not to support the proposed college in Queenstown financially

• Dwane’s second reason was that the church had no authority to create bishops. The controversy over his office as vicar-bishop let him to believe that the AME Church had no Episcopal rights.

• Dwane’s third reason was about the money promised to erect the proposed college that never materialised, as well as the promise given to Mokone that he would receive $1 000 for the erection of a church in Cape Town

Except for four ministers, the whole conference voted in favour of Dwane’s secession proposal. The conference further voted to follow Dwane into the white Anglican Church of the Province in South Africa with almost six thousand AME members. Dwane thus resigned, left the AMEs, and joined the Anglicans. 

In a strongly worded letter published in the Christian Recorder of 7 December 1899, the Rev. Frances McDonald Gow of Cape Town requested Bishop Turner to come to South Africa to defend the AME Church and rectify where possible, the mistakes on the side of the church. In his correspondence he stated the reasons for Dwane’s secession and hoped that Bishop Gaines would be reprimanded for the damage he had done to the church. 

Despite the turmoil, Turner succeeded in winning the denomination’s permanent commitment to South Africa. Mokone, for example, attended the 1900 General Conference as a delegate and along with J. Z. Tantzi was asked to address the assembly in their “native language.” Their speeches followed a native selection, “Nkosi Yam Ubunditande,” sung by the South African choir at Wilberforce University. Most importantly, one of the five bishops elected became South Africa’s first resident prelate. That bishop, Levi J. Coppin, recalled that he “asked to be sent.” Mokone joined others in consecrating him as the thirty-first bishop.

 The General Conference commended Coppin on his “untiring zeal” supervising the AMEs in South Africa. Numerical growth was shown through the addition of three new annual conferences and expansion into Natal, Rhodesia, and other territories in British Central Africa. He launched Bethel Institute in Cape Town in 1901, housed it in a ten-room brick building, and hired a faculty of eight to educate 350 students. This important development greatly pleased South Africans because their initial interest in the AME Church included support for their educational advancement. One of them said “give us … a college or an educational institute that will enable us … to stand on the same platform as the white race … the same as the Negro is doing in America.” Additionally, Coppin was proud of the South African Christian Recorder. The biweekly, which started in 1903, was printed in newly acquired facilities equipped with a modern press and other machinery. Besides the newspaper, the publishing house, a debt-free enterprise, also responded to the printing needs of South Africa’s growing roster of congregations. Coppin, therefore, recommended that the newspaper should be granted official recognition, and its managing editor ranked as a general officer just as the editors of the denomination’s other periodicals did. At the same time, Coppin tackled some intractable issues that drew colonial suspicions about the AME presence. Though AME clergy could not perform marriages, for example, Coppin believed “these hindrances will vanish” once the denomination became better established and won “the respect of the Government and of the religious world.” Nonetheless, he successfully pressed authorities on licenses for at least a few AME preachers who tried fulfilling their matrimonial responsibilities.

The first major achievement for the church was to gain recognition from the Government of the Cape Colony, which was granted on the 21 March 1901. The AME Church in the Cape Colony could now for the first time apply for church sites and the Government officially recognised its marriage officers. Also in 1901 the first building in the Cape Colony was purchased in District Six, Cape Town. It was a twelve-classroom building and operated as a school, called Bethel Institute. Rev. Henry Atterway, an Afro-American was invited by the bishop to become the principal of the school. This school rapidly grew in numbers, which resulted in the increase of the staff to twelve within two years. Bishop Levi Coppin also invited Rev. John Gregg from Kansas City, USA, to assist Rev Henry Atterway.

The 1900 General Conference of the AME Church voted in favour of establishing the South African College. Although the South African delegation made an appeal for $15 000 for the erection of the College, the General Conference of 1900 voted for $10 000. The General Conference furthermore decided that the $10 000 would be divided in four yearly instalments of $2 500 of which the

General Treasurer at the rise of the General Conference would grant the first payment. The $2 500 would be entrusted to the newly assigned bishop of South Africa in order for the building process to proceed as soon as he arrived in South Africa. This College was supposed to be erected in Queenstown. The General Conference also decided that the college, when in operation, should be open to all Africans, notwithstanding any person’s church affiliation. The assumption is made that the American districts were not willing to entrust any money towards a College of Higher learning for blacks in South Africa. The ill-fated promises made by the American districts did not go down well with Coppin. In a strongly worded article in the Voice of Missions of June 1900, he reminded the church about promises made and not honoured. In it he noted that the South African church had to honour all financial obligations towards the American districts. Coppin now had to decide what to do with the money he had collected for the proposed college. Campbell  notes that Coppin was clear in his mind not to erect the college in Queenstown as suggested, but in Cape Town where he could have direct control over the progress of the building.

At the time of Coppin’s negotiations for a suitable site to build the proposed school, a double-storied building on the corner of Hanover and Blythe Streets in District Six became available for sale. The purchased prise was $22 000 of which a deposit of $4 000 had to be paid. The sale of this property was published in the Voice of Mission of September 1901. In this periodical Coppin explains that the property consists of twelve rooms which could be converted into a primary and high school. Adjacent to the school was an empty plot, which was also for sale. Coppin left no stone unturned to ensure that the AME Church should buy the property. Coppin regarded this as an opportunity to restore the image of the AME Church in South Africa. The Bethel Institute, which offered primary, secondary, teaching and missionary training, officially opened its doors on 3 February 1902 after many renovations were done.  The church was embarrassed when in 1904 it was announced that the school was in arrears with its bond to the amount of $14 000. The Bethel Institute was therefore literally bankrupt. Again, the General Conference of 1904 voted in favour of $10 0000 to reduce the bond, but this agreement was also never honoured. The Church eventually lost Bethel Institute in 1905.

Bishop Charles Spencer Smith was elected in 1900 and assigned to the 12 Episcopal District. In 1900 he was assigned to South Africa. Smith became the first bishop in the AME Church to be assigned from an American district to the South African district. This was regarded by a number of Americans as a demotion. Smith had very little understanding of the South African church or of local practices.

 Francis McDonald Gow,  a West-Indian citizen who immigrated to South Africa in the early 1880’s. Gow (Sr.) moved to District Six, Cape Town, where he became a fulltime photographer. When the AME Church was organised in District Six, Cape Town in 1898, Gow Sr. became a member. He was subsequently ordained as a minister of the AME Church and assigned as the second Pastor of Bethel Memorial in District Six. Until his death in 1931 Francis M Gow served for about two decades.

His son was Francis Herman Gow  was born in Cape Town 29 September 1887. He was educated in America and became a Bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1956.

In 1953 a letter from the Secretary for the Interior of the Union of South Africa, made it clear that the request for Bishop F D Jordan, newly assigned bishop for the 14th Episcopal District, to enter the country for a four year period was denied. However, the letter stated that the bishop would be granted a six months permit to enter, but with strict controls attached. The Union of South Africa was of the opinion that since the AME Church had been operating for more than fifty years in South Africa, it should have had equipped enough leaders in South Africa to administer church affairs.

A flow of correspondence also took place between Gow and the Council of Bishops to keep the leadership informed of the situation in South Africa. Gow explained that the Secretary for the Interior of the Union of South Africa was unyielding in his attitude towards African Americans entering the country to administer the work of the church and that he could not cope with all the work which was supposed to be done by a resident bishop. Gow’s argument was that should the church neglect to address this crucial issue, the church in South Africa might face further schism.

Gow was elected on the first ballot at the General Conference in 1956.

Namibia

The inception of the AME Church in Namibia can be traced back to 1925. History has it that a certain woman called Martha Utusisise with her little child moved from Upington to Walvis Bay. Apparently she belonged to the AME Church in Upington. In Walvis Bay she organised in her home a congregation which was to become the St. John AME Church. This small beginning ended up in negotiations between the AME Church and the Rhenish Mission Church under the leadership of Rev. Francis Herman Gow of the AME Church. After lengthy discussions, members of the Rhenish Mission Church broke away and joined the AME Church in 1946 with more than three thousand members. The reason for their breakaway was due to the fact that they desired to rid them of colonial rule within the Rhenish Mission Church.

In 1956 Lesotho and South West Africa (now Namibia) were added to the 15th Episcopal District. In 1962 Lesotho was released from the 15th Episcopal District and in 1984 the 15th Episcopal District was divided into two Districts, namely the 15th and 19th Episcopal Districts respectively.