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Senate Resolution

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A resolution recognizing March 25, 2008, as "African

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Methodist Episcopal Church Day" at the Capitol.

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     WHEREAS, the African Methodist Episcopal Church grew out of

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the Free African Society, established by Richard Allen, Absalom

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Jones, and others in 1787 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and

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     WHEREAS, facing discrimination at the hands of American

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Methodists at the St. George Methodist Episcopal Church, members

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of the Free African Society transformed their mutual aid society

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into a church congregation, and

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     WHEREAS, in 1794, the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal

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Church was dedicated with Richard Allen as pastor, and

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     WHEREAS, to establish the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal

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Church's independence from interfering white Methodists, Richard

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Allen successfully sued in the Pennsylvania courts in 1807 and

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1815 for the right of his congregation to exist as an independent

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institution, and

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     WHEREAS, with the geographical spread of the African

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Methodist Episcopal Church prior to the Civil War mainly

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restricted to the Northeast and Midwest, the most significant era

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of denominational development occurred during the Civil War and

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Reconstruction, when Union army officials would allow African

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Methodist Episcopal Church clergy to move into the states of the

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collapsing Confederacy to bring newly freed slaves into their

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denomination, and

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     WHEREAS, by 1880, African Methodist Episcopal Church

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membership reached 400,000 members, and

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     WHEREAS, Bishop Henry M. Turner propagated African Methodism

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across the Atlantic Ocean into Liberia and Sierra Leone in 1891

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and into South Africa in 1896, and

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     WHEREAS, while the African Methodist Episcopal Church is

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doctrinally Methodist, clergy, scholars, and lay persons have

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written many important works that demonstrate the distinctive

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theology and praxis which have defined this Wesleyan body, and

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     WHEREAS, by the 1990s, the African Methodist Episcopal

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Church included more than 2 million members, 8,000 ministers, and

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7,000 congregations, with 20 bishops and 12 general officers

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comprising the leadership of the denomination in more than 30

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nations in North and South America, Africa, and Europe, and

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WHEREAS, in Florida and the Bahamas, the African Methodist

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Episcopal Church boasts over 105,000 members in the Florida,

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East, Central, West Coast, South, and Bahamas Conferences, who

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are currently led by Bishop McKinley Young, NOW, THEREFORE,

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Be It Resolved by the Senate of the State of Florida:

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     That the Florida Senate recognizes March 25, 2008, as

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"African Methodist Episcopal Church Day" at the Capitol.