African Methodist Quarterly Meeting Day (August)

Wilmington, Delaware, is the home of one of the most unique gatherings of African Americans that date to the early 19th century. The Big August African Methodist Quarterly Meeting day celebrates the establishment of the African Union Methodist Protestant Church, founded in 1813 as the African Union Church, the first independent African American denominations.

African Americans had been present at the founding of what is now Asbury United Methodist Church, the first Methodist congregation in the city, but in 1805, a set of disagreements between the white and black members led to the founding of the Ezion Methodist Church by the black members. Eight years later, that congregation split over continuing its relationship to the larger, whitecontrolled Methodist Episcopal Church. Peter Spencer emerged as the leader of the separatist group. He led a group out of Ezion to found the independent African Union Church, which subsequently emerged as a new denomination with congregations throughout the Northeast.

The new church continued the practice of having quarterly church meetings—a time to conduct business, receive reports, and have a sacramental service and testimony meeting (which Methodists called a love feast). The quarterly meeting held in August began to grow in importance as other congregations of the African Union were founded. It turned into a weekend-long event modeled on camp meetings, but one led by Africans for Africans. Held after the planting season and before the harvest, it was open to both free blacks and slaves. After the Civil War, it continued as a religious gathering, but increasingly took on the characteristics of a general fair and celebration for African Americans in the Mid-Atlantic states.

In recent years, the African Union Methodist Protestant Church has failed to maintain a level of growth equal to either the black church or the black community in general, and the Quarterly Meeting has become a one-day event in August but survives as the oldest such event for African Americans. Although it no longer draws the crowds it did a generation ago, the Big August Quarterly has experienced a resurgence in recent years even as it has become independent of its roots.

References 
Melton, J. Gordon. A Will to Choose: The Origins of African American Methodism. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007. Nelson, Alice Dunbar. Big Quarterly in Wilmington. Wilmington, DE: Author, 1932.

African Methodist Quarterly Meeting Day (August) 2019-11-05T02:23:00-08:00 Rating: 4.5 Diposkan Oleh: mc