page_title: Civil rights movement (1865–1896)
section_title: Methodists
hierarchical_section_title: Civil rights movement (1865–1896) / Religion / Methodists
caption_attribution_description: Henry McNeal Turner
context_page_description: The civil rights movement (1865–1896) aimed to eliminate racial discrimination against African Americans, improve their educational and employment opportunities, and establish their electoral power, just after the abolition of slavery in the United States. The period from 1865 to 1895 saw a tremendous change in the fortunes of the black community following the elimination of slavery in the South.
  Immediately after the American Civil War, the federal government launched a program known as Reconstruction which aimed to rebuild the states of the former Confederacy. The federal programs also provided aid to the former slaves and attempted to integrate them into society as citizens. Both during and after this period, blacks gained a substantial amount of political power and many of them were able to move from abject poverty to land ownership. At the same time resentment of these gains by many whites resulted in an unprecedented campaign of violence which was waged by local chapters of the Ku Klux Klan, and in the 1870s it was waged by paramilitary groups like the Red Shirts and White League.
  In 1896, the Supreme Court ruled in Plessy v.
context_section_description: The most well organized and active of the black churches was the African Methodist Episcopal church (AME). In Georgia, AME Bishop Henry McNeal Turner (1834–1915) became a leading spokesman for justice and equality. He served as a pastor, writer, newspaper editor, debater, politician, the chaplain of the Army, and a key leader of emerging black Methodist organization in Georgia and the Southeast. In 1863, during the Civil War, Turner was appointed as the first black chaplain in the United States Colored Troops.  Afterward, he was appointed to the Freedmen's Bureau in Georgia. He settled in Macon, Georgia, and was elected to the state legislature in 1868 during Reconstruction. He planted many AME churches in Georgia. In 1880, he was elected as the first southern bishop of the AME Church after a fierce battle within the denomination. He fought Jim Crow laws.
  Turner was the leader of black nationalism and promoted emigration of blacks to Africa. He believed in separation of the races. He started a back-to-Africa movement in support of the black American colony in Liberia.  Turner built black pride by proclaiming "God is a Negro."
  There was a second all-black Methodist Church, the smaller African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church (AMEZ). AMEZ remained smaller than AME because some of its ministers lacked the authority to perform marriages, and many of its ministers avoided political roles. Its finances were weak, and in general its leadership was not as strong as AME.  However it was the leader among all Protestant denominations in ordaining women and giving them powerful roles.  One influential leader was bishop James Walker Hood (1831–1918) of North Carolina. He not only created and fostered his network of AMEZ churches in North Carolina, but he also was the grand master for the entire South of the Prince Hall Masonic Lodge, a secular organization that strengthen the political and economic forces inside the black community.
  In addition to all-black churches,  many black Methodists were associated with the Northern Methodist Church. Others were associated with the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church CME; CME was an organ of the white Southern Methodist Church.  In general, the most politically active black ministers affiliated with AME.
caption: Bishop Henry McNeal Turner, AME leader in Georgia.
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