AME history is not a fairytale, Founder’s Day preacher tells North Ohio
By the Rev. Rose Russell
The history of the African Methodist Episcopal Church is not an entertaining narrative. Though it may seem as if Richard Allen and all the Africans walked out of St. George’s Methodist Episcopal Church in agreement, it was not that simple.
“I came to tell somebody that as we celebrate Founder’s Day, the AME Church story is not a Walt Disney movie,” the Rev. Dr. Erika D. Crawford told Founder’s Day celebrants in the North Ohio Conference in the Third Episcopal District, where the Right Rev. Errenous E. McCloud, Jr., is Presiding Prelate.
“The walkout was no fairytale, … no Disney story,” she said, noting that some refused to follow directions. The pastor of Mt. Zion AME Church, Dover, Delaware., was the guest of Presiding Elder LaCreta Clark, Cleveland District, and Presiding Elder Louise Jackson, Youngstown District. Both districts comprise the North Conference that gathered on February 5, 2023, for the occasion at St. John AME Church in Cleveland, Ohio, where the Rev. Henry F. Curtis, IV is pastor.
“We are a people who have survived because we have not been willing to bow, bend, or break,” she said, noting the young Hebrew men’s refusal to worship the gold image.
A two-term Connectional President of AME Women in Ministry, Dr. Crawford, was also welcomed by the Rev. Dr. Mila Cooper, president of the Third District WIM; the Rev. Deia West, coordinator of the North Ohio Conference WIM, and Lenora Brogdon Wyatt, president of the Third District Lay. The Grace AME Church Men’s Chorus of Warren, Ohio, brought joy to the event, as did choirs from St. Andrewes AME Church, Youngstown, and St. Paul AME Church, Cleveland.
“Since 1619, … we have been living, hearing, reading, and now watching stories of traumatic accounts of brutality. And if we learned nothing else [from what happened to Tyre Nichols], we learned that everybody who is our color ain’t our kind,” she said.
The five former Memphis police officers who brutally beat to death Mr. Nichols, 29, are also black. That tragedy sparked protests, moves with which black Americans are intimately familiar.
“Protest is what we do. We protested when we walked out in 1787 of St. George’s Church, the first time that a Protestant church was broken up, not by theological discourse, but by racial oppression, suppression, and repression,” the preacher said.
There were protests and other times when unarmed black men and women were shot or otherwise harmed and died in police custody. Recent demonstrations are on a centuries-old, long list.
“We have survived because we have not been willing to bow, bend, or break,” said Dr. Crawford, a candidate for episcopal service in our Zion. “Beloved, who we are as people committed to the Word of God, unwilling to give in or surrender, goes back to the written Word of God.”
While Founder’s Day celebrates Bishop Richard Allen, Dr. Crawford noted that the Hebrew boys demonstrated how to protest. That the boys were removed from their homes, stripped of their culture, heritage, and religion, and renamed and re-educated to benefit the Babylonians, is akin to the African Diaspora.
“The truth is that not only would they not bow, but they also wouldn’t even bend. When they were reported, they made a decision that it’s going to be what it’s going to be. We should never forget that it is not the empire or system that has provided protection for us. It is God,” she said. “Any time you serve God, it is counter-cultural. You are either going to serve God, or you are going to serve the people.”
After they were thrown into the furnace, the king looked in and saw four men inside, and Daniel reported that “the form of the fourth is like the Son of God.” Therefore, when people make up their minds to honor God, they will not bow, bend, or break, “but you will also not burn,” Dr. Crawford added.
“We’re not here today because the road has been easy, but because there were some people who decided, ‘We won’t bend, bow, break, and we refuse to burn,’ ” she said.
And not even was one of the Hebrew boys’ hair singed by the fire. They were obedient to God, and He protected them.
The Rev. Rose Russell is pastor of Payne Memorial African Methodist Episcopal Church in Holland, Ohio, in the Cleveland District of the North Ohio Annual Conference, Third Episcopal District.
