Florida Senate - 2009                            (NP)    SR 2714
       
       
       
       By Senator Joyner
       
       
       
       
       18-02116B-09                                          20092714__
    1                          Senate Resolution                        
    2         A resolution recognizing March 31, 2009, 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 white
    9  American Methodists at the St. George Methodist Episcopal
   10  Church, members of the Free African Society transformed their
   11  mutual aid society into two church congregations, one of which
   12  was Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, and
   13         WHEREAS, while the African Methodist Episcopal Church is
   14  doctrinally Methodist, its clergy, scholars, and lay persons
   15  have written many important works that demonstrate the
   16  distinctive theology and praxis that have defined this Wesleyan
   17  body, and
   18         WHEREAS, in 1794, Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church
   19  was dedicated with Richard Allen as pastor, and
   20         WHEREAS, to establish Bethel African Methodist Episcopal
   21  Church’s independence from interfering white Methodists, Richard
   22  Allen successfully sued in the Pennsylvania courts in 1807 and
   23  1815 for the right of his congregation to exist as an
   24  independent institution, and
   25         WHEREAS, the geographical spread of the African Methodist
   26  Episcopal Church prior to the Civil War was mainly restricted to
   27  the Northeast and Midwest, and
   28         WHEREAS, the most significant era of denominational
   29  development occurred during the Civil War and Reconstruction,
   30  when Union army officials allowed African Methodist Episcopal
   31  Church clergy to move into the states of the collapsing
   32  Confederacy to welcome newly freed slaves into their
   33  denomination, and
   34         WHEREAS, by 1880, African Methodist Episcopal Church
   35  membership reached 400,000 members, and
   36         WHEREAS, the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Florida
   37  began on June 22, 1865, with the appointment of Rev. William G.
   38  Steward as the founding pastor, and
   39         WHEREAS, Bishop Henry M. Turner transported African
   40  Methodism across the Atlantic Ocean into Liberia and Sierra
   41  Leone in 1891 and into South Africa in 1896, and
   42         WHEREAS, by the 1990s, the African Methodist Episcopal
   43  Church included more than 2.5 million members, 8,000 ministers,
   44  and 7,000 congregations, with 21 bishops and 9 general officers
   45  comprising the leadership of the denomination in more than 30
   46  nations in North and South America, Africa, and Europe, and
   47         WHEREAS, the African Methodist Episcopal Church boasts more
   48  than 105,000 members in the Florida, East, Central, West Coast,
   49  South, and Bahamas conferences, who are currently led by Bishop
   50  McKinley Young, the denomination’s 109th elected and consecrated
   51  bishop, NOW, THEREFORE,
   52  
   53  Be It Resolved by the Senate of the State of Florida:
   54  
   55         That the Senate recognizes March 31, 2009, as “African
   56  Methodist Episcopal Church Day” at the Capitol.