Celebrating 90 Years of Central/Southern Africa’s First AME Church
By Nonstikelelo Dhlamini , 20thEpiscopal District
The year 2018 brings us in the wonderful celebration of 90 years of Young’s Chapel AME Church situated at Bulawayo’s oldest suburb of Makokoba in Zimbabwe (Southern Africa). Celebrations will be held on 5-6 May 2018 and BishopRonnie E. Brailsford, the presiding prelate of the 20thEpiscopal District, will attend with other visitors from the USA. This is remarkable given the circumstances under which it all began. We are here today in this space against all odds.
By the end of the 19thcentury, Central and Southern Africa had come under the British Colonial domination. In every sphere, Europeans were to be masters and Africans to be servants. Around the same time, the Rev. Maake Makone, “who belonged to the Wesleyan Methodist church,” left his church and founded the Ethiopian Church. While he was busy organising this black-led Ethiopian church, he received a letter from a Charlotte Maxeke, who was in the United States as a member of the African Singers. As a result of that letter, the Rev. Makone wrote to Bishop Henry McNeal Turner, who sent him the AME Church Disciplineand other information which were considered at the Ethiopian Church Conference, held in Pretoria on 17 March 1896. It was resolved to unite with the AME Church.
A delegation was sent to America to negotiate the affiliation, which took place at Allen Temple AME Church in Atlanta, Georgia. Two years later in 1898, Bishop Turner came to organise the church in South Africa.
Imbued with the spirit of missions and self-determination, Bishop Turner was the first bishop of the AME Church to set foot in Southern Africa. The Rev. Makone, a man of vision and action, led the first missionaries across the Limpopo River to Zimbabwe in 1900, under the leadership of Bishop Levi J. Coppin.
In establishing the church in Bulawayo, they met with difficulties as European settlers saw them and their followers as people whose aim was to work against the “colonial rule” and advocate for the rise of African Nationalism. As a result, the Rev. Gabashani and a Mr. Ncube sent a message to Bishop Coppin in South Africa.
In 1902, Bishop Coppin visited Zimbabwe. His visit had a great impact. The white settlers began to take the AME Church seriously. In 1903, the Cape Annual Conference assigned the Rev. Daniel K Gabashani as presiding elder of Zimbabwe. The Rev. Moses D Makgatho was assigned to Bulawayo.
The task of expanding the church in the Matabeleland region, where the city of Bulawayo is, was left to the Rev. M.D Makgatho, the Rev. M.C. Ncube, and Mr. John Tshaka, who was later ordained as a minister.
The period 1900-1924 was the most difficult. The followers of our church were sometimes referred to as political agitators who were said not to be preaching the word of God but politics. They were frequently prohibited from holding services in public places by the colonial government. In fact, white settlers did not believe that Africans could organise a viable church. Despite this opposition, in 1928, Young’s Chapel, the first AME Church building in Central and Southern Africa was erected in Makokoba Township in Bulawayo with the inscription, “Ebenezer, Kude Kwalapa u Thixo Unathi” or “Hither to the Lord Hath been with us” from 1 Samuel 7:12.
This was the first AME Church to be built by Africans for Africans. This year, 2018, we want to salute our original “Yes We Can” campaigners,” all those who have served so faithfully in leadership positions. They include bishops, pastors, presiding elders, deacons, and staff members. They include all those who have willingly given their time and efforts to teach, encourage, counsel, and sponsor. They include all those who have been such a wonderful part of our fellowship for so many years and are now are resting in peace awaiting Jesus’ second coming.
The work which our forefathers began was a work of self-determination, self-help, and self-esteem. This work must not be understood by our generation as a preoccupation with egocentric aims and ambitions. We must never forget that self-help, self-determination, and self-esteem for our mothers and fathers were not solely personal aims but where goals for the race.
The AME Church has pioneered in keeping hope alive and served as a mother or midwife for succeeding Black institutions of significance. This includes R.R Wright School of Religion, established in 1938 in South Africa.
We must know that we are pilgrims saved from the Holocaust of the slave masters brutality, reborn in Christ. We are the people with a testimony about how we got over.Onward Christian soldiers. The building that symbolises the African achievement is still standing. Glory be to God, from whom all blessings flow.
Additional information from AME Church Review, Episcopal address (1992), the Rev. C. N. Mkwananzi.
