[Day 21 #BlackHistorySeries ] #HenryMcNealTurner (February 1, 1834 – May 8, 1915) was a minister, politician, and the first southern bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church; he was a pioneer in Georgia in organizing new congregations of the independent black denomination after the American Civil War. Born free in South Carolina, Turner learned to read and write and became a Methodist preacher. He joined the AME Church in St. Louis, Missouri in 1858, where he became a minister; later he had pastorates in Baltimore, Maryland and Washington, DC. In 1863 during the American Civil War, Turner was appointed as the first black chaplain in the United States Colored Troops. Afterward, he was appointed to the Freedmen's Bureauin Georgia. He settled in Macon and was elected to the state legislature in 1868 during Reconstruction. He planted many AME churches in Georgia after the war. In 1880 he was elected as the first southern bishop of the AME Church after a fierce battle within the denomination. Angered by the Democrats' regaining power and instituting Jim Crowlaws in the late nineteenth century South, Turner began to support black nationalism and emigration of blacks to Africa. #DoResearch #BlackHistory #BlackArt #BlackHistoryArtSeries #AfricanHistory #KissMyBlackArts #KMBA #SeekKnowledge #SeekTruth #SlimBabyGfx #YoungBlackandGold #WeComeFromRoyalty #1000Network http://ift.tt/1G1S8W4
