LI’s AME churches share 200 years of history at museum event

For more than two centuries, African Methodist Episcopal churches on Long Island have been refuges from discrimination, and islands of autonomy.

On Saturday, members of the 13 AME churches on the Island gathered at the African American Museum of Nassau County in Hempstead to share their histories and pray to God for guidance in moving forward.

“This is important because it gives us an opportunity to build community among the people, and it helps us to understand that we’re pretty much all the same, and that we have a rich heritage,” said the Rev. Evelyn Miller-Suber, pastor of First Hempstead AME Church and the organizer of Saturday’s event, which was the first of its kind, local church leaders said.

More than 60 people perused poster-board displays emblazoned with photos and landmark achievements of each church, as well as of one congregation from the “cousin” AME Zion denomination. Representatives of each of the 14 churches — which have memberships ranging from about a dozen to more than 300 — delivered addresses recounting the congregations’ histories.

The roots of the AME Church date to the late 18th century, with the Free Africa Society social-service organization and after leaders of a white-led Philadelphia church removed blacks from what were considered “white” seats during prayer. In 1816, five congregations united to form the AME Church.

The AME presence on Long Island has its origin in an era when slavery was legal in New York State and free blacks were not welcome in many white-led congregations. Although predominantly black, AME churches have long embraced all, including others who faced exclusion, such as poor whites and Native Americans, said the Rev. Gregory Leonard, pastor of Bethel AME Church in Setauket.

“If you’re a poor white person, they may have looked down upon you in other churches, but at Bethel, they may have been more welcoming,” Leonard said.

The Rev. Craig Wright, pastor of Calvary AME Church in Glen Cove, said his church served people of all backgrounds with its Thanksgiving dinners and toy and school-supply drives, and in connecting people to food assistance, educational opportunities and immigration attorneys. Its basement served as the birthplace for three other predominantly black congregations in the city, he said. They were viewed as ways to serve the same God rather than as competition.

“AME churches are committed to inclusion, and committed to the economical, spiritual, physical and educational needs of all people in the community,” he said.

To this day, AME congregations provide “a comfort level” for African-Americans, “a church where people look like you, who worship like you,” Miller-Suber said. “The preaching is more animated in a black church, it’s louder in a black church, and the music is more gospel.”

The Rev. Leonard Davis, pastor of Bethel AME Church in Babylon, said AME churches historically had offered African-Americans a rare opportunity for self-determination.

“Since our arrival on this land, we haven’t been able to control our destiny,” he said. “But in the church, we could have control over things and we could organize and do things the way we felt we wanted to do them.”

Especially in the denomination’s first decades, AME churches were among the only ways an African-American could be a leader, Davis said.

“For early African-Americans, we couldn’t hold office, we couldn’t have any title,” he said. “But in the church, a guy who was the janitor could now be the deacon. He was somebody. The guy who cleaned the bathroom, he could be the trustee. He could be the preacher.”