HR 9067

1	House Resolution
2	A resolution recognizing March 25, 2008, as "African
3	Methodist Episcopal Church Day" at the Capitol.
4
5	WHEREAS, the African Methodist Episcopal Church grew out of
6	the Free African Society, established by Richard Allen, Absalom
7	Jones, and others in 1787 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and
8	WHEREAS, facing discrimination at the hands of American
9	Methodists at the St. George Methodist Episcopal Church, members
10	of the Free African Society transformed their mutual aid society
11	into a church congregation, and
12	WHEREAS, in 1794 the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal
13	Church was dedicated with Richard Allen as pastor, and
14	WHEREAS, to establish the Bethel African Methodist
15	Episcopal Church's independence from interfering white
16	Methodists, Richard Allen successfully sued in the Pennsylvania
17	courts in 1807 and 1815 for the right of his congregation to
18	exist as an independent institution, and
19	WHEREAS, with the geographical spread of the African
20	Methodist Episcopal Church prior to the Civil War mainly
21	restricted to the Northeast and Midwest, the most significant
22	era of denominational development occurred during the Civil War
23	and Reconstruction, when Union army officials would allow
24	African Methodist Episcopal Church clergy to move into the
25	states of the collapsing Confederacy to pull newly freed slaves
26	into their denomination, and
27	WHEREAS, by 1880, African Methodist Episcopal Church
28	membership reached 400,000 members, and
29	WHEREAS, Bishop Henry M. Turner pushed African Methodism
30	across the Atlantic Ocean into Liberia and Sierra Leone in 1891
31	and into South Africa in 1896, and
32	WHEREAS, while the African Methodist Episcopal Church is
33	doctrinally Methodist, clergy, scholars, and lay persons have
34	written many important works that demonstrate the distinctive
35	theology and praxis which have defined this Wesleyan body, and
36	WHEREAS, by the 1990s, the African Methodist Episcopal
37	Church included over 2,000,000 members, 8,000 ministers, and
38	7,000 congregations, with 20 bishops and 12 general officers
39	comprising the leadership of the denomination in more than 30
40	nations in North and South America, Africa, and Europe, and
41	WHEREAS, in Florida and the Bahamas, the African Methodist
42	Episcopal Church boasts over 105,000 members in the Florida,
43	East, Central, West Coast, South, and Bahamas Conferences, who
44	are currently led by Bishop McKinley Young, NOW, THEREFORE,
45
46	Be It Resolved by the House of Representatives of the State of
47	Florida:
48
49	That the Florida House of Representatives recognizes March
50	25, 2008, as "African Methodist Episcopal Church Day" at the
51	Capitol.

CODING: Words stricken are deletions; words underlined are additions.