The Mother African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, also known as "Mother Zion", located at 140–148 West 137th Street between Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard and Lenox Avenue in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, is the oldest African-American church in New York City, and the "mother church" of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion conference. [1] [2]
The church was designated a New York City Landmark on July 13, 1993. [3]
The building was constructed between 1923 and 1925 and was designed by architect George W. Foster Jr., one of the first registered African-American architects in the United States. It is neo-Gothic in style, with a "simple facade", [4] similar to several other Protestant churches built in Manhattan during the late 19th century and early 20th century. The sanctuary has an "auditorium" layout, of a type that was becoming popular with Protestant congregations at the time, rather than a "cross" form of layout, which has a deep chancel for the altar, and a long nave intersected by two transepts. The seating is arranged in a wide arc around the altar and pulpit, and features a wide balcony on the second level, also in an arc layout. Seating capacity inside the church is about 1000. [2]
The building is the sixth to house the congregation.
The Mother A.M.E. Zion congregation was formed in 1796 by African-American members of the predominantly white John Street Methodist Church. Although that church was abolitionist in its orientation, racial segregation was still enforced in other ways. As one A.M.E. Zion historian described it:
The colored members were not permitted to come to the sacrament (Holy Communion) until all the white members, even children, had communed. [2] : 28–36, 156–160
The founding bishop who led the congregation was James Varick, whose tomb is located underneath the current building's sanctuary. The original congregation numbered about 100 members, who met in a rented hall. [5] The congregation met at several other locations in Manhattan – including at Church and Leonard Street, Bleecker Street and 127 West 89th Street [6] – before moving to 151 West 136th Street in Harlem in 1914, [1] [6] and then settling at the present location.
The A.M.E. Zion conference was referred to nationally as the "Freedom Church" for its vital role in the United States abolitionist movement, and was an "Underground Railway" refuge. [2] Sojourner Truth was a member of the congregation, and spoke out from the pulpit against slavery. Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass were members of the A.M.E. Zion conference at other congregations. Mother Zion's identification with the abolitionist movement led to it being attacked by an anti-black mob during the three-day anti-abolitionist riot in 1834. Windows were smashed at Mother Zion, and several black and white churches were set ablaze. The July 12, 1834 New York Evening Post newspaper denounced the attacks as a "disgrace". [7]
Mother Zion also became an important cultural center for the city's African-American community. Paul Robeson, brother of Pastor Dr. Benjamin C. Robeson, spoke from the pulpit. Dr. Robeson's activism for civil rights led him to work with prominent Harlem Renaissance members such as Langston Hughes and W. E. B. Du Bois. [2] From the 1920s into the 1960s, Bertha Des Verney was choir and drama director at the church, and produced concerts and historical pageants as fundraisers and community outreach. [8] [9]
Today, the Mother Zion church continues to sponsor a variety of social programs aimed at assisting members of the congregation and the surrounding community. Several historic artifacts from the church's 200-year history are on display in the vestibule.
The African Methodist Episcopal Church, usually called the AME Church or AME, is a Methodist Black church. It adheres to Wesleyan-Arminian theology and has a connexional polity. The first independent Protestant denomination to be founded by Black people, AME welcomes and has members of all ethnicities.
The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, or the AME Zion Church (AMEZ) is a historically African-American Christian denomination based in the United States. It was officially formed in 1821 in New York City, but operated for a number of years before then. The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church adheres to Wesleyan-Arminian theology.
The Abyssinian Baptist Church is a Baptist megachurch located at 132 West 138th Street between Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard and Lenox Avenue in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. It is affiliated with the National Baptist Convention, USA and American Baptist Churches USA.
Peter Williams Jr. (1786–1840) was an African-American Episcopal priest, the second ordained in the United States and the first to serve in New York City. He was an abolitionist who also supported free black emigration to Haiti, the black republic that had achieved independence in 1804 in the Caribbean. In the 1820s and 1830s, he strongly opposed the American Colonization Society's efforts to relocate free blacks to the colony of Liberia in West Africa.
The Bialystoker Synagogue is an Orthodox Jewish synagogue at 7–11 Bialystoker Place in the Lower East Side neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City, New York, United States. The building was constructed in 1826 as the Willett Street Methodist Episcopal Church; the synagogue purchased the building in 1905.
James Varick was the first Bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church.
The John Street United Methodist Church – also known as Old John Street Methodist Episcopal Church – located at 44 John Street between Nassau and William Streets in the Financial District of Manhattan, New York City was built in 1841 in the Georgian style, with the design attributed to William Hurry and/or Philip Embury. The congregation is the oldest Methodist congregation in North America, founded on October 12, 1766 as the Wesleyan Society in America.
St. Andrew's Episcopal Church is a historic Episcopal church located at 2067 Fifth Avenue at 127th Street in the neighborhood of Harlem in Manhattan, New York City. Built in 1872, it was designed by noted New York City architect Henry M. Congdon (1834–1922) in the Gothic Revival style. It features a 125 foot tall clock tower surmounted by a slate covered spire surrounded by four towerlets.
Thomas James (1804–1891) had been a slave who became an African Methodist Episcopal Zion minister, abolitionist, administrator and author. He was active in New York and Massachusetts with abolitionists, and served with the American Missionary Association and the Union Army during the American Civil War to supervise the contraband camp in Louisville, Kentucky. After the war, he held national offices in the AME Church and was a missionary to black churches in Ohio. While in Massachusetts, he challenged the railroad's custom of forcing blacks into second-class carriages and won a reversal of the rule in the State Supreme Court. He wrote a short memoir published in 1886.
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St. James AME Zion Church is a historic African Methodist Episcopal Zion church located at Ithaca in Tompkins County, New York. It is a two-story, frame church structure set on a high foundation and featuring a four-story entrance tower. The church structure was begun in the 1830s and modified many times since. The original stone meetinghouse was built in 1836 and is believed to be Ithaca's oldest church and one of the oldest in the AME Zion system.
Bethel AME Church, now known as the Central Pennsylvania African American Museum, is a historic African Methodist Episcopal church at 119 North 10th Street in Reading, Berks County, Pennsylvania. It was originally built in 1837, and is a 2½-storey brick and stucco building with a gable roof. It was rebuilt about 1867–1869, and remodeled in 1889. It features a three-storey brick tower with a pyramidal roof topped by a finial. The church is known to have housed fugitive slaves and the congregation was active in the Underground Railroad. The church is now home to a museum dedicated to the history of African Americans in Central Pennsylvania.
The Church of the Transfiguration is a Roman Catholic parish located at 25 Mott Street on the northwest corner of Mosco Street in the Chinatown neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. The parish is under the authority of the Archdiocese of New York and is staffed by the Maryknoll order.
St. Philip's Episcopal Church is a historic Episcopal church located at 204 West 134th Street, between Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard and Frederick Douglass Boulevard in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. Its congregation was founded in 1809 by free African Americans worshiping at Trinity Church, Wall Street as the Free African Church of St. Philip. First located in the notorious Five Points neighborhood, it is the oldest black Episcopal parish in New York City. Historically, it was extremely influential both while located in lower Manhattan and as an institution in Harlem, and many of its members have been leaders in the black community. In 2020, it reported 188 members, 111 average attendance, and plate and pledge income of $224,827.
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The Greater Hood Memorial AME Zion Church was the first black church in Harlem, New York. It now receives notoriety as the "Oldest Continuing" church in Harlem. The church’s first house of worship was erected on East 117th Street, between 2nd and 3rd Avenues in 1843.
The Mary E. Bell House is a historic house at 66 Railroad Avenue approximately 1/10th mile south of the Long Island rail road in Center Moriches, Long Island, New York. Built in 1872 by Selah Smith of Huntington who purchased the land, it is significant in the area of ethnic history for the Smith and Bell families and the African-American AME Zion community of Center Moriches during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2020. It is under the Stewardship of the Ketcham Inn Foundation.
The A.M.E. Zion Church of Kingston is an African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church located in Kingston, New York. Founded in 1848, as a land grant from wealthy Black residents, Mrs. Sarah-Ann Hasbrouck and her husband, Alexander, it is the oldest continuous African-American congregation in Kingston and Ulster County. The church is located at 26 Franklin Street in the city's Fourth Ward.
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