Turner, Henry McNeal

Impact on the world

Became the first Southern bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1880 after a fierce internal denominational battle, having earlier become the first Black commissioned chaplain in the U.S. Army during the Civil War; disillusioned by Reconstruction's collapse and the rise of Jim Crow, he became the era's most prominent advocate of Black emigration to Africa, organizing two ship voyages that carried roughly 500 emigrants to Liberia in 1895-96, while separately expanding AME missionary work into West and South Africa, Cuba, and Mexico across four trips to the African continent in the 1890s.

Life & background

Born free in Newberry County, South Carolina to parents of mixed African and European ancestry, including a white plantation-owning grandmother, Turner was barred by state law from formal schooling but taught himself to read and write before becoming a licensed Methodist preacher at 19, eventually studying Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and theology at Trinity College in Baltimore. His vigorous recruitment of free Black soldiers for the Union Army during the Civil War earned him a commission as the first Black chaplain in U.S. Army history, after which he settled in Macon, Georgia, planted numerous AME congregations across the state, and won election to the Georgia state legislature during Reconstruction. As Reconstruction collapsed and Southern Democrats reinstated discriminatory laws, Turner grew convinced that Black Americans would never receive full justice in the United States, becoming by 1880, the same year he was elected the AME Church's first Southern bishop, the era's leading advocate of emigration to Africa; he organized two 1895-96 ship voyages carrying roughly 500 emigrants to Liberia, though many returned home disillusioned, undermining the broader movement. He simultaneously devoted himself to expanding AME missionary work internationally, traveling to Africa four times in the 1890s to establish the church in West and South Africa and sending missionaries to Cuba and Mexico, work that drew Black South African students to study in the United States. His views drew sharp disagreement even from fellow Black leaders, including a young W.E.B. Du Bois, who found Turner's emigrationist focus outdated even as the two co-founded the Georgia Equal Rights Association together in 1906; at that organization's convention, a 72-year-old Turner delivered a blistering address declaring that the American flag had become, to Black Americans, nothing but a contemptible and dishonorable symbol. He died in 1915 while traveling on AME Church business, with an estimated 25,000 mourners attending his funeral.

Sources

1. BlackPast.org; New Georgia Encyclopedia; Encyclopedia.com; Boston University School of Theology History of Missiology; Social Welfare History Project