Chapter 1 Introduction Chapter 2 Anthony's Legacy Chapter 3 African American Methodism's Beginnings Chapter 4 Emerging Centers of Black Methodism: Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and Wilmington Chapter 5 Emerging Centers of Black Methodism: Philadelphia, New York City, and Brooklyn Chapter 6 African Methodism Away from the Cities Chapter 7 The Push into the South Chapter 8 Women—the New Force in Church Life Chapter 9 Toward Emancipation Chapter 10 Emancipation and Its Transitions
J. Gordon Melton is the director of the Institute for the Study of American Religion in Santa Barbara, California. He is the author of more than twenty-five books, including the Encyclopedia of American Religions, American Religion: An Illustrated History, Encyclopedia of Protestantism, and the Encyclopedia of African American Religion.
Melton has given us an excellent history of a heretofore
scarcely-documented theme. It is light enough that it is hard to
put down and deep enough to refer to again and again. This work
will be a classic of American church history.
*Black History Review*
J. Gordon Melton has performed a thoroughgoing research effort in
probing the records and publications to present an integrative and
inclusive picture of Methodism with African American Methodism seen
in its realistic roles and functions at the center of the founding
and development of this major denomination in American church and
social history. He is to be lauded for his persistence in pursuing
over several decades the rigorous goal of bringing together the
separate strands of Methodists within their true interactive
historical perspective.
*Mozella G. Mitchell, Ph.D., Professor and Chair, Religious Studies
Department, University of South Florida*
A Will to Choose is the most original and extensive treatment of
early African Methodism produced up to this point. Remarkable for
its rich information and the breadth and balance of its
interpretations, this book is not likely to be surpassed or
superseded. Essential reading for historians of religion and the
African American experience.
*Lewis V. Baldwin, Author of Invisible Strands in African
Methodism: A History of the African Union Methodist Protestant and
Union American Methodi*
A Will to Choose gives those who have been unknown to history,
prominence; those who have been voiceless, voice; those who have
been neglected, attention. In this richly textured narrative, J.
Gordon Melton has mined never-used and under-used sources to ensure
that the story of African Americans in the first century of
American Methodism is fully told and never overlooked again. The
inclusion of all the historic African American denominations makes
this a critical and welcomed addition to Methodist
historiography.
*Robert J. Williams, Ph.D., General Secretary, General Commission
on Archives and History, The United Methodist Church*
In A Will to Choose, Gordon Melton presents a deeply insightful and
well researched chronicle of African American Methodism which he
traces from its mid 18th century Moravian roots through the Civil
War. He does a masterful job of weaving together the divergent but
sometimes intersecting histories of several strands of the
Methodist movements as it spread from the North East throughout the
South. This book makes a very significant contribution to our
understanding of African American religion and spirituality.
*E. Lincoln James, Managing editor, The Western Journal of Black
Studies*
Of the writing of books on African American Methodism there will be
no end, but this book is well worth paying attention to. This book
has been a labor of love, the culmination of a forty-two year
project by J. Gordon Melton in searching out and making sense of
many scattered and not easily accessible sources....What he
[Melton] aims to trace in all of its glory and struggles is a
tradition of African American leadership....He succeeds remarkably
well....There is much to recommend this work....This book is an
important advance in black Methodist historiography.
*Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture, March
2008*
From one of the most productive scholars of American religions,
Gordon Melton in A Will to Choose reclaims the lost stories of
enslaved and free black men and women who embraced and advanced
variant expressions of African-American Methodism from 1770-1870.
His narrative sparkles as a moving chronicle of the active and
creative presence of these amazing black Christians in the Wesleyan
tradition from its very beginnings in North America and functions
as a sharp corrective to a scholarship that has more often than not
made these African-American Methodists invisible within the largest
Protestant movement throughout the 19th century in the US. This
book culminates a generation of Melton's devoted research and joins
the ever-growing and engaging literature of African-American
religious history.
*Will Gravely, professor emeritus of religious studies, University
of Denver*
This work will be of value to all interested in African American
life, American religious history, and American social and cultural
studies. . . . Highly recommended. All levels.
*CHOICE*
Thoughtful and meticulous.
*Journal of American History, March 2008*
J. Gordon Melton has produced a very useful and readable
examination of African American Methodism....This will be an
indispensable book for those with an interest in African American
history and the history of religion.
*Journal of Southern History, August 2008*
Long after the promise of Reconstruction gave way to the closed
society of the Jim Crow South, the church remained a crucial site
of black self-determination and self-definition. A Will to Choose
demonstrates that this was always a characteristic of African
American Methodism.
*The Journal of African American History*
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