Press Release: New Pastor of Mother Bethel stands on broad shoulders of predecessors & brings passion for history

Okay, I know that there is probably a much more creative way to make this announcement, but frankly, I'm still speechless. I'll just say "Thank you, Lord!" and thanks to Bishop Norris for the trust he has placed in me to represent all of you at the Mother Church. With that, I’ll let the press release say the rest.

PRESS RELEASE

Rev. Dr. Mark Kelly Tyler, Ph.d. IS NAMED THE 52^ND PASTOR OF historic MOTHER BETHEL AME CHURCH IN PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania, the oldest property continuously owned by black Americans. Dr. Tyler is a dynamic preacher and pastor having led congregations in California, Missouri, Ohio, and New Jersey. Dr. Tyler is also a skilled teacher serving as an adjunct professor at Payne Theological Seminary in Ohio and New Brunswick Theological Seminary in New Jersey.

Dr. Tyler has become widely known in the AME Church for his love of AME Church history. His passion and knowledge are not only demonstrated in his sermons and teachings, but also during his recent campaign for the office of Historiographer in the AME Church. During the year-long campaign, Dr. Tyler developed a grassroots following using such efforts as his blog: Tyler’s AME History Notes (www.markkellytyler.blogspot.com).

While Dr. Tyler’s aspiration to serve as Historiographer was not realized at the General Conference, the loss turned into a gain by paving the way for him to serve as the 52^nd pastor of Mother Bethel. He is excited about this new chapter in his ministry that fuses his passion for history with his love of serving as a pastor in the AME Church. “It is a tremendous honor to serve as the pastor of Mother Bethel,” Tyler said of his appointment. “This congregation has stood as a beacon of hope for citizens of Philadelphia for more than 200 years. But far beyond the borders of the City of Brotherly Love and Sisterly Affection, Mother Bethel is also a symbol of liberation, hope and self-help for members of the AME Church throughout the world,” Tyler added.

Dr. Tyler succeeds Bishop N. Jeffrey N. Leath, who served at the head of Mother Bethel for the past 15 years. Bishop Leath was elected and consecrated the 128^th Bishop of the AME Church in July 2008. Elected at the head of his class, Bishop Leath now serves as the presiding prelate of the 19^th Episcopal District of the AME Church in South Africa.

Consequently, the pastor that Bishop Leath succeeded in 1993 is Bishop Richard F. Norris the 116^th Bishop elected and consecrated in 2000 and current leader of the 1^st Episcopal District. Dr. Tyler received his new assignment from the hand of Bishop Norris 2 weeks ago.

Dr. Tyler is a native of Oakland, CA. He is a graduate of Clark Atlanta University with a B.A. in Religion, Payne Theological Seminar y with the M.Div., and the University of Dayton with an earned Ph.D. in Educational Leadership.

Mother Bethel’s building and Museum are located on the corner of 6^th and Lombard Streets. It is open for guided tours Tuesdays through Saturday, from 10am-3pm, and Sundays after the 8am and 10:45am worship services.

8 Days in November: How the AME Church Represented Black America at the 1876 Centennial Celebration

(On the left: Bust of Bishop Richard Allen; Above: Bishop Richard Franklin Norris, along with Dr. Susanna Gold and ph.d. candidate Rob Armstrong, stands on the site where the Bishop Allen bust was dedicated in 1876.)

In 1876, the United States of America threw a 6 month party to celebrate 100 years of nationhood. The Centennial, held at Fairmount Park in Philadelphia, opened on May 10 and closed on November 10. Intended to display before the world America's great diversity, black Americans were conspicuously absent and silent.

When Frederick Douglass, for example, showed up for the opening ceremony in May to take his place on the main stage, he was not allowed to address the enormous crowd. In fact, he almost was not allowed on the stage. Although he possessed valid credentials, Philly's "finest" refused to let him pass. It took the intervention of a U.S. senator from New York to get America's most famous black man to his seat. So rather than wait for someone to offer a seat at the table, the AME Church took its' own seat.

Determined to have a black presence at the Centennial, members of the Arkansas Annual Conference devised a plan to erect a monument in honor of AME founder, Bishop Richard Allen. Under the leadership of Revs. John T. Jenifer and Andrew J. Chambers, $7,000 was raised to commission a stunning, 22' high, imported Italian marble sculpture that would hold a bust of Bishop Allen. Every map of the Centennial that has survived includes the Bishop Allen Monument, making it the the only exhibit set up by, about, and expressly on behalf of black Americans.

The monument as intended, however, was not to be. Continually met by delays, setbacks, and ultimately disaster, it seemed as though it was destined never to make it to the exposition. Scheduled for unveiling in Philadelphia on the 4th of July, the sculptor did not deliver on his promise. The committee was forced to push the full dedication back to September, but soon met a new challenge. As the monument was shipped from Cincinnati, the train that transported it encountered some type of accident crossing the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania. The entire 22 foot high, elaborate monument, with the exception of the bust of Bishop Allen, was destroyed in the accident.

Feeling somewhat defeated, the committee purchased a plain 9' granite pedestal shaped like a pyramid and placed the bust of Bishop Allen on top of it. To add insult to injury, the guest speaker for the dedication on November 2, never arrived. Remarks were given by Bishop John M. Brown and the Richard Allen Monument was dedicated. Being on display for only 8 days in the 6 month long Centennial, it must have seemed that all the effort was simply in vain.

But that would miss the larger point. Remember, there was a concentrated effort to stifle the voice of dissent and the voice of the oppressed. But the monument offered an opportunity for the AME Church to say on behalf of others, that which could not be said on the main stage.

J.T. Jenifer at the first dedication of the monument's base in June, delivered a sermon that the organizers of the Centennial surely did not want the world to hear. According to Jenifer, the "outrages and murders committed upon us are the fruits of wanton prejudice, hatred, and hellish passion, suffered to satiate itself under the weakness of the Government upon the plea of State rights." Unlike most speech by black Americans of his day, the words were not relegated to the pages of the black press. This speech was reprinted in its entirety in the pages of the widely read Philadelphia Press for all the world to see.

In closing his address, however, Jenifer did not look back to the pain of the past or on the struggles of the present. Rather, he looked forward with hope to future generations imagining the world 100 years later:

"We are here today before the eyes of all nations to show our appreciation of the American Centennial. We shall not be here the next national anniversary, but our children will be. They will not come as we have come, but they will come greater--come with their productions. They will come in their arts, their science, their literature, and in their philosophy, in all of which they shall excel. Color lines will then be wiped out, caste will be gone; the American citizen, white or black, will be honored and loved, and mind and moral excellence will be the measure of the man."

But the period of hope that Jenifer spoke of in his speech would have to wait, at least for a little while.

Following the end of the expo, the monument committee asked the Fairmount Park Commission to allow the bust to remain in the park as a lasting tribute (like the Catholics and others were allowed to do), but they were denied. Within a few weeks, the monument was taken down and placed at Wilberforce University.

The symbolism of Bishop Allen being "put out" of the park was fitting for the times, for a few months later the period of Reconstruction had come to an end. The clock was rolled back on blacks in America, Jim Crow laws became the rule of the land, civil rights were revoked, voting rights were denied, blacks were run out of elected office, and the greatest period of terror on free black men began as lynchings became common and widespread.

The dream of Jenifer may have been delayed, but it was not to be denied. 100 plus years later, we are the evidence that all things are possible with God. We sit today as the fruit of his dream. There are still giants to face and mountains to climb, but in the words of the black church, "we may not be where we want to be, but thank God, we're not where we used to be!"

The Slave House to the White House: From Hercules to Obama and the meaning of the black presence in the Executive Mansion

When the nation's first president, George Washington, occupied the Executive Mansion in Philadelphia (at that time, Washington, D.C. had not yet become the nation's capitol), he did a very odd thing for the leader of a newly freed democracy that proclaimed that all men were created equal: he imported slaves from his Virginia plantation to serve him in what would become known as the White House. In the White House, across the street from the United States Congress, on 6th and Market Streets in Philly, President Washington set up slave quarters in the residence that was meant to be a beacon of freedom for all the nations to see.

When talk about slave quarters in the White House first began a few years back, the National Park Service argued that slaves never lived in the mansion. They did not want to mar the image of the executive residence by suggesting that something as ugly as slavery lived there, so they denied it. But on last year, as excavation began on for a new memorial to be built on the site where the house previously sat over 200 years ago, a funny thing was exposed below the ground: slave quarters. A slave house in the White House, just think about that for a moment.

The irony obviously did not escape his enslaved servants, either. Hercules (believed to be the man in the above portrait on the left), one of the slaves that was brought from Virginia, served as the Executive Chef in the White House kitchen. By all accounts, he lived an enviable life, even for a slave. He was allowed to sell leftovers from the kitchen to local residents and made an estimated profit of $200 a year. However, no matter how comfortable his life was or high he rose, he was still a slave.

It is very likely that Hercules came into contact on a regular basis with the free black population of Philadelphia, including AME Church founder, Bishop Richard Allen. In addition to being a pastor, Allen was also a master chimney sweep and one of his contracts was with President Washington. It is difficult to believe that Hercules and Allen (himself a former slave) would not have had contact while in Philadelphia. Seeing free black men and women come and go as they pleased must have taken a toll on Hercules. When he could no longer take being a slave, he packed what he could carry, slipped out into the night, and disappeared never to be seen of again by the president. Hercules ran as fast as he could away from the White House.

Yes, in the 1790s, blacks were running away from the White House. But now, 200 plus years later, blacks are now running to the White House! When President Elect Obama and his family walk through the doors of the White House, they will represent more than just the First Family. They will represent more than just a change from one political party to the next. They will represent, as Maya Angelou most eloquently expressed it, "the dream and the hope of the slave." They represent the dream of Hercules, the dream of Olney Judge (another escaped White House slave), the dream of the millions of slaves and those who died in the Middle Passage before even making it to the Americas. They are a powerful reminder that sometimes, dreams do come true.

Speaking of dreams, isn't it interesting that 40 years after the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the Moses of the Civil Rights Movement, we have come to the place where God has raised a Joshua to take the movement in a new direction. Could this be what Dr. King saw from the mountaintop that night before his death in his last speech? If that sounds like a stretch, consider this fact: we stand exactly 40 years after Robert F. Kennedy proclaimed on "Meet the Press" that he believed a black man could be president in 40 years. Imagine it, 40 years is the same period of time that the Hebrews had to wander in the wilderness before God allowed them to enter into the Promised Land, and now black Americans have lived long enough to witness that which was hardly a dream just one generation ago.

But that is glory of what only God can do. God can move you from the "slave house" in life and place you in the "White House" even though all the odds are against you. Someone said it this way, "He picked me up, turned me around, and placed my feet on solid ground." For what we have witnessed on this past week, to God be the glory!