Understanding Black Liberation Theology: A 40-Year Retrospective

As we approach the 40th year of Black Liberation Theology, this is a must see event! Click on this link to see AME scholars James Cone and Obery Hendricks, along with former Riverside Church pastor James Forbes, Dwight Hopkins, and Calvin Butts, as they struggle with this issue.

We owe a debt of gratitude for their individual contributions to the Struggle and to the Schomburg Center in Harlem for making this presentation available.

Philadelphia Area Book Signing raises new (and troubling) questions for AMEs

Richard S. Newman, in writing one of most comprehensive works on the life of our founder, Bishop Richard Allen, has done a marvelous job in pulling together facts and chronological events; yet, he has been able to keep the story fresh and alive. Freedom's Prophet is really a page turner and difficult to put down once you pick it up.

This Thursday, June 19, 2008, from 5:30pm to 7, Newman will meet and greet the audience, read selected portions, and sign copies at the Library Company . Those attending the General Conference in St. Louis should also know that the book can be ordered from my exhibitor booth for a deeply discounted price (booth #125).

If I have any criticism about the book thus far, it is simply this:

Why is it that others outside of the AME Church seem to appreciate our history more than us?

The last major work published on one of the "Four Horsemen" of the AMEC was in 1992 by Stephen Angell when he wrote his biography on Bishop Henry McNeal Turner (Bishop Henry McNeal Turner and African-American Religion in the South). Like Newman, Angell is not AME. In fact, neither of them are of African descent (at least directly). We should be grateful that Newman and Angell have such a broad and open research agenda and have proven themselves as first rate scholars, but what about us?

When is someone going to write a major, comprehensive biography on the life of Jarena Lee (the next comprehensive biography on her life will be the first--thank the Lord that she wrote her own story down!)? What about those founding mothers and fathers in West and South Africa who helped shape African Methodism in the Motherland? Who will tell their story? What about the story of how the AME Church spread to other parts of the world?

Have we no one in our own ranks to tell our story? Have we no one qualified and trained to pick up the tools of research and answer the question of whence we've come? Must we always sit back and hope that others will find our history important enough to write and then interpret it for us? Do we always need someone else to tell us what it means to be AME?

Some will say that there is no audience or market for our material. However, when I recently tried to purchase some copies of Freedom's Prophet in bulk for the upcoming book signing, the warehouse had already sold out of the first printing (the book was just released in March!). Obviously, someone is reading it.

Fortunately, there are those in the ranks of the AME Church who have contributed greatly to the scholarly discourse on the history of the AME Church (Reginald Hildebrand, Theresa Fry Brown, Bernard Powers, to name a few). However, even they will say that there are far too few of us spending our precious time in research on questions involving the AME Church. Let us hope that Newman's new work on Bishop Allen (which ironically highlights his self-determination) will inspire future AME researchers, scholars, and writers to find a research agenda in one of the most fascinating places of them all, the African Methodist Episcopal Church.

Tyler for Historiographer Campaign "Goes Green": Check out Digital Ad Book

I am grateful that on tonight, June 8, 2008, my Presiding Elder (Dr. Robert Christopher Wade), Rev. Stanley Justice, President of the Camden-Trenton Ministerial Alliance, pastors, and laity of the Camden-Trenton District, and my own congregation (Macedonia AMEC, Camden, NJ) have planned a major fund raiser in support of my effort to become the next Historiographer of the AME Church at the upcoming General Conference. The Rev. Dr. Stanley Hearst and the good members of Bethel AMEC in Moorestown, NJ were good enough to open their doors for the service, in which the Rev. Reginald Jackson (candidate for Bishop) is to preach. Donations have literally come in from all over the country, for which our family is deeply appreciative.

As we neared completion of the ad book, Rev. Tresa Carter (a member of my staff) laid out the book in Microsoft Powerpoint. After seeing it in its animated form in full color, we did not want to cut costs and run it in black/white. We also faced the challenge that people (especially businesses) who placed ads would only get limited exposure for the significant amount of money paid for the ad. In addition to all of this, the overhead to run off several hundred copies and mail them out (even in black/white), would defeat the purpose of a "fund raiser."

So, taking all of those issues in consideration, we have literally "gone green" with this souvenir book. Not only will all persons at the event tonight who paid for an ad receive the book in CD version, it is also available for download from my blog in the "Favorite Links" section (or by clicking here: http://download.yousendit.com/9C12D8E46A23AB1E or clicking the picture above).

This download is free and available to anyone who would like it. An very positive and unintended consequence of this effort is that businesses and other patrons will literally now have a world-wide audience thanks to email and the web. This is good for trees, for advertisers, and for the campaign! I call that a win-win-win situation. I hope that you download it, enjoy browsing through it, and share it with others. Maybe the next ad book will come with soundtrack!

History is now a family affair as First Lady catches the history bug: "Unpacking" the mysterious Rev. S. J. Patterson

Disclaimer: I know that some of you will say I’m only doing this because my husband is a candidate for the office of Historiographer of the AME Church. Well, that is only partially true. You see, I’ve been bitten by the “history bug.” All it took was one find from my own personal past to convince me we need to build an International Archives for the AME Church NOW – so that our richness and greatness can get out of our boxes in our basements…

It was Christmas, 2007, my first time back at my parents house since my father died more than a year ago. The homecoming was bittersweet. My mom had just undergone a successful kidney transplant operation. While getting a new kidney was what we had prayed for more than four years, I dreaded being back in the house I had never been in without Daddy. So I, in all my nosiness, did what any other “daddy’s girl” who spent her lifetime as an investigative journalist would do… I started pouring through his things trying to, somehow, bring myself closer to him. “Super Snoop” is what Daddy dubbed me more than 20 years ago…

I found his baby pictures – old images that are hard to distinguish from pictures today of my 3 year old daughter, Sharon. In an instant, I reflected on him saying “She looks just like me” after seeing Sharon’s picture when she was born. And as if it were yesterday, I remember replying “No, Daddy, she looks like Mark…” Guess he was right, as always. I also found his high school diploma – a framed document that for my entire life hung prominently on the wall of every home we ever lived in. On this day, I actually took the time to read it…. Then I stumbled upon a box that was marked “Dr. WA Patterson, Jr., MD.” The box was filled with items that belonged to my late grandfather, who practiced medicine in Miami, Florida. I found hand written notes from my great-grandparents – written to my father when he was first born. I found old driver’s licenses, books and a ton of old pictures – grandpa loved to take pictures!

Then I stumbled upon something that really caught my attention… a large, manila envelope that had the words “Uncle Joe” scribbled on it in my father’s hand writing. Uncle Joe was my grandfather’s only brother. He died when I was 10 years old. All I ever really knew about Uncle Joe was that he had a very pretty wife, Edith, who died before I was born. He never had children and every time he visited us from his home in Winston Salem, NC, he always liked to be dropped off at the library. At his funeral, I learned that Uncle Joe was actually Rev. Dr. Joseph Patterson – distinguished professor at Winston Salem State University (a building on the campus bears his name today) and the pastor of the Wentz Memorial United Church of Christ in Winston Salem. He also lived off “Patterson Avenue” a street in Winston Salem named after him. As I grew older, Grandpa and Daddy would often share memories of Uncle Joe. Now that I’ve found this folder, it was an opportunity for me to learn more.

I tried making sense of all the papers I found. Among the documents: an obituary for Rev. SJ Patterson of Palatka, Florida, my grandfather and Uncle Joe’s hometown. In fact, our family still owns property in Palatka!

The obituary said Rev. SJ Patterson was the Presiding Elder of the South Florida Conference born in 1870, died in 1922. He graduated from Wilberforce University and was a trustee for Edward Waters College. The funeral had to last several hours because there was a long list of preachers on the program. As I flipped through the program I wondered – am I connected to Rev. SJ Patterson? If so, how? I asked my mother if she knew anything about Rev. SJ Patterson. She did not. I asked my father’s sister Pearl in Miami – she never heard of Rev. SJ Patterson. She looked at the picture from the obituary and said he looked a lot like my great grandfather – Dr. William A. Patterson, Sr. I called my grandfathers cousins in Daytona Beach – they had never heard of Rev. SJ Patterson. So Mark looked him up online in Richard R. Wright's Centennial Encyclopedia of the African Methodist Episcopal Church and found the following:

"Patterson, Rev. S. J., was born in Greenville, S. C., February 16, 1867 [I've found that the conflicting date of birth on the obituary is not an uncommon find in family research]. With his parents, Isaac and Rachel Patterson, he moved to Florida when six years old. Was converted May 1, 1887; licensed to preach July 8, 1889, by Dr. S. H. Coleman; joined the conference, March 6, 1894. He was made general missionary by Bishop T.D. Ward in February, 1896. His first appointment was to Cottage Hill, "Ybor City," a town with one member. He was ordained deacon by Bishop W. J. Gaines, March 9, 1897, and elder, March 5, 1899, at Orlando, by Rt. Rev. W. J. Gaines. He graduated June, 1903, from Payne Theological Seminary, Wilberforce, Ohio. He was elected delegate to the general conferences of 1908 and 1912. He was appointed presiding elder February, 1906, by Bishop B. T. Tanner and has been successively and successfully presiding elder since that time. He is well known and highly esteemed."

With this little bit of information I got so excited! I had to find out how I might be connected to Rev. S.J. Patterson. I launched an intensive search on Ancestry.com, where I found that Isaac and Rachel Patterson were in fact my great, great grandparents who relocated to Florida from South Carolina during Reconstruction! This helped to confirm that Rev. Samuel Joseph Patterson (likely who my Uncle Joe was named after) was the older brother of my great grandfather – Dr. William A. Patterson, Sr! That would make Rev. SJ Patterson my great, great uncle!

I cannot begin to tell you the sense of pride I felt when I realized my great, great uncle was a “highly esteemed” Presiding Elder in our home state of Florida! He served as a delegate to two general conferences and, like my husband, he graduated from Payne Theological Seminary in Wilberforce, Ohio. I wish my great, great uncle were alive today to see his legacy of distinguished scholars and church leaders. He would have been so proud that his great, great niece married an AME Pastor and scholar. I also wish I had known about my uncle, Rev. SJ Patterson before now. Had I not come home, missed my deceased father, and been snooping through his things – that box probably would have been thrown out. Sadly, all of this rich, storytelling history – like so much of ours – sits in boxes, in our basements waiting for an International Archives to call home…

Written by Mrs. Leslie Patterson Tyler, "Guest Blogger"