HR 9041

1	House 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 the 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 which have defined this Wesleyan
17	body, and
18	WHEREAS, in 1794, the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal
19	Church was dedicated with Richard Allen as pastor, and
20	WHEREAS, to establish the Bethel African Methodist
21	Episcopal Church's independence from interfering white
22	Methodists, Richard Allen successfully sued in the Pennsylvania
23	courts in 1807 and 1815 for the right of his congregation to
24	exist as an 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 would allow African Methodist
31	Episcopal Church clergy to move into the states of the
32	collapsing Confederacy to pull newly freed slaves into their
33	denomination, and
34	WHEREAS, the history of the African Methodist Episcopal
35	Church in Florida began June 22, 1865, with the appointment of
36	Rev. William G. Steward as the founding pastor in Florida, and
37	WHEREAS, by 1880, African Methodist Episcopal Church
38	membership reached 400,000 members, and
39	WHEREAS, Bishop Henry M. Turner pushed African Methodism
40	across the Atlantic Ocean into Liberia and Sierra Leone in 1891
41	and into South Africa in 1896, and
42	WHEREAS, by the 1990s, the African Methodist Episcopal
43	Church included over 2,500,000 members, 8,000 ministers, and
44	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, in Florida and the Bahamas, the African Methodist
48	Episcopal Church boasts over 105,000 members in the Florida,
49	East, Central, West Coast, South, and Bahamas Conferences, who
50	are currently led by Bishop McKinley Young, the denomination's
51	109th elected and consecrated bishop, NOW, THEREFORE,
52
53	Be It Resolved by the House of Representatives of the State of
54	Florida:
55
56	That the Florida House of Representatives recognizes March
57	31, 2009, as "African Methodist Episcopal Church Day" at the
58	Capitol.

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