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<\/a>He was known as Black Harry\u00a0and heralded to be\u00a0one of the best preachers around. Born in North Carolina and freed in Maryland around the end of the Revolutionary War, Harry would be the first to preach to a white audience, in part because his delivery was so impressive. The fact he was illiterate makes his ability all the more striking. He traveled with Francis Asbury, the notable leader of American Methodism, preaching to great applause and\u00a0with great conviction. His famous sermon, “The Barren Fig Tree” (Luke 13:6-9) is considered the first formal sermon given by an African American in America. He summed up his work this way, “I sing by faith, pray by faith, preach by faith, and do every thing by faith.”<\/p>\nAbsalom Jones (November 7, 1746 \u2013 February 13, 1818)<\/strong><\/h3>\n
<\/a>In 1804, Absalom Jones became\u00a0the first African American priest in the Episcopal Church. He was instrumental in helping Richard Allen, a lifelong friend, begin the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) denomination. He and Allen also began the\u00a0Free African Society with the objective to help both widows and orphans. On two occasions in the 1790s, he petitioned Congress and the President about opposing slavery. When Yellow Fever broke out in Philadelphia in 1793, it was Jones and Allen who worked alongside Dr. Benjamin Rush (fellow Christian and famed signer of the Declaration and friend to both Adams and Jefferson) to nurse those who were sick back to health. Today, Jones is remembered with a feast day on the Episcopal Church calendar.<\/p>\nRichard Allen (February 14, 1760 – March 26, 1831)<\/strong><\/h3>\n
<\/a>Richard Allen opened the first\u00a0African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) in Philadelphia in 1794. The bewildering\u00a0part of the story is that he never wanted to open a church separate from where he was a preacher at St. George’s Methodist Episcopal Church. He was\u00a0<\/b>restricted to early morning services but as the number of black congregants became larger, the church leadership designated Allen’s service to a different place. He resented the move as bigoted and started what would become\u00a0Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church today. It’s the oldest property to be owned continuously by African Americans. Today the AME denomination has 7,000 churches and 3.5 million members.<\/p>\nSojourner Truth (1797 \u2013 November 26, 1883)<\/strong><\/h3>\n
<\/a>She knew that God’s call was on her life, to speak truth into a broken world. She wanted to\u00a0break down the institution of slavery and work on behalf of the rights of women. With the help of famed abolitionist, William Lloyd Garrison, Truth published\u00a0The Narrative of Sojourner Truth: A Northern Slave\u00a0<\/i>in 1850, a book that would provide some financial stability and a story for the noble cause against slavery. As a Methodist who knew God’s resurrection power, Sojourner pinned this hymn she sang as an itinerant preacher, “It was early in the morning\u2013it was early in the morning, Just at the break of day\u2013 When he rose\u2013when he rose\u2013when he rose, And went to heaven on a cloud.”<\/p>\nAlexander Crummell (March 3, 1819 – September 10, 1898)<\/strong><\/h3>\n
<\/a>A scholar and an Episcopal priest, Crummell went to Cambridge University with support from abolitionists. He spent the next 20 years in Liberia as a\u00a0missionary. He returned to the US in 1872, and by 1875 he started St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, the first independent black Episcopal church in Washington, DC. He led the congregation until 1894. His work in Pan-Africanism and the abolition of slavery were both fused by the Christian call for redemption and grace. In a sermon titled “Building Men” (I Cor. 3:10), he says, “There are people who would fain convince themselves that it is possible to stand in a place of utter indifference in spiritual matters; devoid of all moral responsibility. Never was there a more deceptive error framed by Satan for human ruin. There is no neutral line between the two great principles of good and evil; no intermediate point or party between the strong hosts of goodness, on the one hand, and the leagued bands of wrong and evil, on the other. In the universe of God there are two great principles ever antagonistic, one to the other; that which conserves, and that which destroys.”<\/span><\/p>\nJohn Jasper (July 4, 1812 – March 30, 1901)<\/strong><\/h3>\n
<\/a>John Jasper was an electrifying Baptist preacher from Richmond, Virginia. He rose to prominence as the pastor of the Sixth Mount Zion Baptist Church. People were attracted to his discernment and delivery of Scriptural truth. One of his most famous sermons, “De Sun Do Move”, he tracks through God’s providence as Israel seeks the Promised Land and up to that day recorded in Joshua 10:13. He exegetes the Bible with all the vigor of a scholar but with the heart of a pastor, getting to his final point of God’s awesome plan. \u00a0“Fellow-sinners in ranks!” he concludes, “Turn your back on Hell, and look toward Heaven! King Jesus cometh! \u2014 Fall in ranks! When all his elect shall mount in chariots drawn by winged horses, and be seen going up in the clouds to that blessed abode where all the houses is made of gold and the streets is paved with pearls. Amen.”<\/p>\nHarriet Tubman (1822 \u2013 March 10, 1913)<\/strong><\/h3>\n
<\/a>She was called Moses because of her work in successfully exploiting the\u00a0Underground Railroad to free more than 700 slaves. She was also a cook, nurse,\u00a0and eventually an armed spy for the Union. She also became an outspoken advocate for women’s rights. Like others during the 1800s, she claimed to have dreams that she took as revelations from God. In fact, she credited all her life to God’s good providence. She said,\u00a0“‘Twant me, \u2019twas the Lord. I always told him, ‘I trust to you. I don\u2019t know where to go or what to do, but I expect you to lead me,’ and he always did.”<\/p>\nWilliam Seymour (May 2, 1870 – September 28, 1922)<\/strong><\/h3>\n
<\/a>Seymour is synonymous with the\u00a0Azusa Street Revival in Los Angeles, where God used him mightily to bring about what we know as the Pentecostal movement. He was from Louisiana, baptized Catholic and grew up attending a Baptist church. He received modest training in the Holiness tradition but in Los Angeles the church leadership\u00a0rejected Seymour’s emphasis on speaking in tongues. He began a Bible study that would become the Azusa Street Revival. It was April 9, 1906 and the Spirit of God fell on the group with fire, tongues, and other signs. Today, most Protestant Pentecostals, which number in the hundreds of millions trace their lineage to Azusa.<\/p>\nMartin Luther King Jr. (January 15, 1929 \u2013 April 4, 1968)<\/strong><\/h3>\n