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Colored Methodist Societies began to
be organized in other cities. The central
issues were segregated seating and dis
crimination in the reception of Holy Com
munion. (Blacks were not allowed to re
ceive until allthe Whites had been served.)
In April 1816, representatives from five
such separate bodies met at Bethel Church
in Philadelphia. They voted to organize
the African Methodist Episcopal Church.
They sued for independent status before
the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania and
won. Richard Allen became thefirst bishop
of the new denomination.
The desire for non-discriminatory ac
cess to Holy Communion in the Methodist
Church led Black New Yorkers ofthe John
Street Methodist Church to seek permis
sion to conduct their own services. The
new congregation was chartered as the
African Methodist Episcopal Church of the
City of New York. it was also known as
Zion Church.
In June 1821, representatives of Black
Methodists in New York, Connecticut and
Pennsylvania met to form an independent
Black Methodist body. In 1848, the Gen
eral Conference voted to add "Zion"to its
name in honor of the first New York con
gregation. Thenceforth, it was known as
the African Methodist Episcopal Zion
Church.
The Colored Methodist Episcopal
Church was organized in Jackson, Ten
nessee in 1870 by former slave preachers
and members of the Methodist Episcopai
Church, South. The church followed mi
grating Blacks to the Eastern Seaboard,
the Southwest and Midwest, and after the
turn of the century, established congrega
tions on the Pacific Coast. In 1956, the
name was officially changed to the Chris
tian Methodist Episcopal Church.
The Church of God in Christ, a Holi
ness Pentecostal Church, is the largest
Pentecostal Church in North America. It
was founded by Charles Price Jones and
Charles Harrison Mason in 1907. Insisting
on a deeper spiritual expression of sanc
tification, such as "speaking in tongues."
Jones and Mason were rejected by their
Baptist Churches. They conducted holi
ness revivals and eventually organizedthe
first local Church of God, which became
the first Holiness Church in the United
States to obtain a charter and incorpora
tion..
In 1946, Mason Temple, headquarters of
the church, was builtin Memphis, Tennes
see. It is the largest building constructed
and owned by aßlack religious group. On
April 3, 1968, the night before his assassi
nation, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. gave
his "l Have Been to the Mountaintop,"
speech at Mason Temple.
GIDEON'S ARMY
After three months of regular consuita-
tions with one another--facilitated by the
Reverend andformer Congressman Walter
E. Fauntroy, together with Dr. Earl Gray of
AOIP; Dean Clarence G. Newsome of
Howard University Divinity School; Dr.
Mabel Phifer of the National Black College
Satellite Network; and severalkey techni
cians who have made themselves avail
able to them--this is what they have re
solved to do as the first step in an evolving
collaborative process.
They plan to recruit "GIDEON ARMY Sol
diers" from among the delegates attend
ing each of their annual conventions and
conferences this summer. To be a Gideon
Soldier, one merely promises his or her
pastor and denomination head that he or
she will gladly accept the names of five
persons who live on the block where they
live and who are known not to be regis
tered to vote. The heads of the denomina
tions say they have the capacity to be that
precise. With those names, each Gideon
Soldier is asked to do two simple things:
(1) Contact those persons over the com
ing monthsto persuade and assistthem in
getting registered; and (2) takethemtothe
polls with them when they go to vote on
November 5, 1996. Thus, for example, a
churchthat has 100 Gideon Soldiers could
deliver 500 previously unregistered voters
to the polls on Election Day. The denomi
national heads are urging that all of our
national organizations will form such
GIDEON ARMIES as well. "If everybody
does a little," the denominational heads
say, "nobody will have to do a lot."
The denominational heads have a goal
of recruiting a million Gideon Soldiers for
the fall offensive. So if you should see a
person wearing a GIDEON ARMY button
that reads, "I'M ONE IN A MILLION," con
gratulate him or her for being one of those
"Holy Bold" members of a church that is
serious about letting his or her religion"live
in the market place of community uplift."
With a million Gideon Soldiers doing their
job, the prospect is that five million new
African American voters willshow up atthe
polls on November 5, 1996 as the "mar
ginal vote" for worthy candidates of their
choosing at the national, state, local levels
in this crucial election year.
Each denomination head has desig
nated a GIDEON ARMY commander for
his "Division" of the Army. That GIDEON
ARMY Commander is expected to name
one pastor fromthe denomination who will
join a GIDEON ARMY Council to be com
posed of designees from each denomina
tion in each of fifty or more cities or rural
areas across the nation. They will work
together in their local communities on a
number of spiritual, economic, educational,
and political initiatives agreed upon by
their national heads. The six denomina
tional leaders whose photographs appear
on the cover of this special issue of the
National BLACK MONITOR are looking
forward to being joined in this collabora
tive effort by the heads of three additional
national Black church denominations in
Is Your Organization A Participating AOIP Affiliate?
the near future. To give you an idea of the
almost 29 miilion African Americans whom
the GIDEON ARMY Soldiers would mobi
lize, consider the following membership
breakdown:
The National Baptist Convention, U.S.A,,
Inc. (8.2 million)’
Dr. Henry J. Lyons, President
The Church of God in Christ (5.9 million)
Bishop Chandler Owens, Presiding Bishop
The African Methodist Episcopal Church
(3.5 million)
Bishop McKinley Young, Chairman of the
Board of Bishops
The National Baptist Convention of
America (3.5 million)
Dr. E. Edward Jones, President
The Progressive National Baptist Con
vention, Inc. (2.5 million)
Dr. Bennett W. Smith, President
The African Methodist Episcopal Zion
Church (2 million)
Bishop Joseph Johnson, President of the
Bishops Council
The Christian Methodist Episcopal Church
(876,000)
Bishop William H. Graves
A NATIONAL BLACK CHURCH
COMMUNICATIONS NETWORK
The initial activity of the GIDEON ARMY
will be a "Nationwide Teleconference" fea
turing the heads of the denominations in
dialogue with hundreds of thousands of
members of their congregations gathered
in over 500 sites across the nation. That
Teleconference--scheduled now for Sep
tember 19, 1996--will be devoted to the.
Voter Registration/Get-Out-The-Votedrive
that is being initiated with the GIDEON
ARMY enlistment drive being made ateach
annua! convention and conference this
summer.
The heads of these seven historically
black church denominations plan to meet
by video teleconference on a monthly ba
sis from now on, once the initial network to
put onthe September Teleconferenceis in
place. Thereafter, you ought to follow in
the National BLACK MONITOR the vari
ous spiritual, economic, education, and
public policy initiatives that these outstand
ing leaders of our black churches will be
fashioningtobe carried out by the GIDEON
ARMY. They look forward to deploying the
GIDEON ARMY Soldiers as well as to sup
portingthe programs presently being con
ducted by local and national organiza
tions in our communities.
Chief among their public policy initia
tives is likely to be the Capital Homestead
'Source: 1996 Information Please Alma
nac (New York: Houghton Mifflin Com
pany, 1996), p. 412,
National BLACK MONITOR-July/August 1996
Program proposed by Rev. Walter E.
Fauntroy which was outlined in the March
and April, 1996 issues of the National
BLACK MONITOR. As a matter of fact
each convention and conference is being
askedto pass resolution in support of that
public policy initiative at its annual session
this summer.
Other AOIP organizations are encour
aged to do what the National Council of
Negro Women and other national organi
zations are committed to do: pass out
GIDEON ARMY enlistment cards at their
conventions this year, and pass a resolu
tionin support of a Capital Homestead Act
as a part of their deliberations. A copy of
the resolution and GIDEON ARMY Enlist
ment Card that should be duplicated for
the broadest possible dissemination at
every convention may be found below.
The heads of our seven historically black
churches, who have embarked on this
unprecedented collaborative effort would
like for you to act upon them both. For
more information about new initiatives as
they are developed, please contact Ms.
Emille Smith, staff assistant forthe effort, at
either 202-387-9100 or 212 967-4000.
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