The Lee Was Born A Free African American Woman

Elizabeth Keckley was born a slave in Virginia, USA in February 1818. She worked as a slave in Virginia until the age of 14 when she was moved to North Carolina. After 30 years of suffering after suffering as a slave, she eventually gained a group of supporters and she bought her freedom in 1855. She moved to Washington in 1860 and eventually worked for the parliament as a dressmaker.

Since the arrival of African Americans in this country blacks have always had differing experiences. Consequently, African-Americans have had to forge a self-identity out of what has been passed on to them as fact about their true selves. History has wrought oppression and subjugation to this particular race of people and as a result, certain institutions were formed in order aid African-Americans, culturally, spiritually and economically. The African-American Church has served of one such institution. From the time of slavery, though outlawed, many slaves found ways to congregate and form their own "churches", away from the one-sided and bias lessons about the bible that they were being taught in the white church. The white ministers and

"The Black church functioned as revolutionary unity during slavery." The African Methodist Episcopal Church, not formally organized until 1816 but dates back to 1787 refused to abide by the Jim Crow laws. In protest, they all left the church and established their own genre of worship. The founders of the African Methodist church were uneducated, illiterate ex-slaves. Despite that, they had a clear sense of their dignity and worth. They rejected the irrational treatment of their White counterparts, who considered them as a nuisance in the Church. Whites wanted to keep Africans within the church separate. They even created legal obstacles for separation. As a result, the African Methodist formed independent churches in Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, etc. The African Methodist Episcopal Church was able to provide for its self, in its early stages, within twelve years (1841 to 1853) the Church built and remodeled two churches, which cost about $16,000. The A.M.E. Church has given African people an independent hierarchy that recognizes our individuality, it has empowered African-Americans. In celebration, Methodists sought to render services to their people, schools were built and charitable programs were developed, aiming to lift the spirits of the new freed men. Educating their people, young and old, were

Nelle Harper Lee was born on April 28, 1926 to Amasa Coleman Lee and Frances Cunningham Finch Lee. Her father, a former newspaper editor and proprietor, was a lawyer who also served in the state legislature. Lee grew up in the small southwestern town of Monroeville, Alabama. As a child, Lee was a tomboy and an intelligent reader; she enjoyed the friendship of her schoolmate, Truman Capote.

For almost eight decades, enslaved African-Americans living in the Antebellum South, achieved their freedom in various ways—one being religion—before the demise of the institution of slavery. It was “freedom, rather than slavery, [that] proved the greatest force for conversion among African Americans in the South” (94). Starting with the Great Awakening and continuing long after the abolition of slavery, after decades of debate, scholars conceptualized the importance of religion for enslaved African-Americans as a means of escaping the brutalities of daily life. Overall, Christianity helped enslaved African American resist the degradation

Such unity and self-determination was evidenced in 1801, when Richard Allen, founder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church published a hymnal by and for African Americans (Costen, 81). Hymns have served black people in their everyday lives and had and have

And upon this ground our ….. and in short is totally repugnant to the idea of being born slaves.” Furthermore, many African Americans were very religious. After the civil war and even during it, many African Americans started their own churches separate to the churches that the whites went to. Reverend Mr. Gloucester, an African American, was a minister at a Presbyterian Church who had “friends of religion and of the poor Africans in Philadelphia subscribed liberally towards building him a church” (Document

Jarena Lee was born on February the 11th 1783, in Cape May, New Jersey. She was born into freedom, but Cape May was entangled by just enough commerce and culture, with Maryland’s Eastern Shore and Virginia’s northern borders, that she probably was exposed at an early age, to the inhumanities that characterized southern enslavement. At the age of seven, Lee was separated from her parents and sent to live as a servant maid for a Caucasian family sixty miles away from her home. The names and occupations of her parents are unknown, but what is about them is that they were entirely ignorant of the knowledge of God and because of that had not instructed her in any way regarding the matter of God or religion. Lee’s lack of the knowledge of

In 1816, Richard Allen founded the first African-American led church in the country, the African Methodist Episcopal Church. The African Methodist Episcopal Church was the first major religious denomination in the western world that originated because of sociological and not theological differences. It was the first African-American denomination organized and incorporated in the US. The church was established in what was known as the Blacksmith Shop Meeting House. “By 1786 blacks made up about 10 percent of the Methodist church in the United States, and though whites and blacks often worshiped together, blacks enjoyed no real freedom or equality. Segregated seating was typical; the area reserved for blacks was usually called the “Negro Pew” or the “African Corner.”

As time went on she became more involved in church, and religious activities. She got baptized and saved at the church that she always attended. She grew to love the black church that she grew up mocking. The old lady that always sat in the front row made her realize how deep the roots of her church were.

Jarena Lee was so doubtful of her salvation that she attempted suicide. She suffered a severe ailment which prevented her to preach and left her with only a few family members left to care for. In boldness of her call prompted her to interrupt a sermon and expounded on the current text. Her memoirs suggest that the male clergy hierarchy finally accepted her call throughout the Methodism church. Jarena became an autobiographer by paying the cost of publications of Life and Religious Experience and Journal. These women needed a great deal of convincing to fulfill their preaching call. For example, during a camp meeting, Zilpha felt an invisible hand on her shoulder, and heard a voice tell her to go outside of the tent. Going outside, she felt a sudden internal prompting, and began preaching loudly to the crowds around her who were moved to tears. After this, Zilpha was convinced that she was called to preach. Another unique attribute was their commitment to their call. Julia Foote married at age 18 to a former sailor who became a pastor (minister). Both her mother and her husband vehemently opposed her public preaching. Julia’s mother told her that she would rather hear of her daughter's death than to her hear her preaching from a pulpit. Her husband was so opposed that he threatened to commit her to an insane asylum. However, Julia

These three perceptions are distinctly different, but ultimately speak to the contextual nature of Black theology—rooting worship, adoration, and discipleship within the notion a (conscious) living G-d. The first perception explored is the image G-d adored through the lens of Sister Sweet and Mother Darling. At first glance, these women appear different in life style and theology—different churches, different abilities, and different approaches to discipleship. But upon further examination, one discovers the same paradigm at work. Both have lost children to AIDS. Both have committed themselves to a praxis centered theology to process their loss. Mother Darling is street missionary and Sister Sweet is a disabled woman confined to a wheel that feeds the birds and attends to the needs of the Little piece of Heaven Church. Both have found peace in their personalized work for the Lord. Their G-d is a “shelter in a time of storm.” The second perception is the image of G-d as seen through Deacon Zee. This G-d is one of salvation and complacence for Deacon Zee. The “White Jesus” he prayed to for his assistance in finding his copy of the Wall Street Journal—a nuanced symbol for prosperity. This G-d speaks to the corporate nature and element of

African-American religion dealt with life as blacks lived it. It was about pain and sorrow, sin and shortcoming, pardon and joy, praise and thanksgiving, grace and hope. This version of Evangelicalism provided a wonderful benefit; it was able to accomplish great things in their lives that were frequently shouted about. Whether it be through a simple shout during church, or a song sung in the fields Evangelicalism took root among African-Americans. Large numbers underwent conversion, baptism, instruction, worship, and lived the life of a Christian even in face of oppression. Although, the development of their own religious institutions would await Emancipation and the war 's end, there were many thousands of Negro Baptists and Methodists by 1850, which represented what African-American religious culture had grown into.

The memoir of Old Elizabeth presents a rare and important slave narrative in which the stories of African American women intersect with the experiences of African American people in roles of religious leadership. Elizabeth broke many of societies conventions at the time by preaching and holding religious meeting despite being woman. Her religious work was met with backlash from the church and from many other people who did not accept the idea of a woman leading religious services, yet she continued to practice until her health would no longer allow for it. This is unusual as it spends most of the narrative on the time after she was free rather than focusing on the time that she was enslaved the way that many slave narratives do.

Nelle Harper Lee was born on April 28, 1926 in the tiny southern town of Monroeville, Alabama ("Harper Lee"). Her father Amasa Coleman Lee, had many occupations. He was a