Choice Review

Rivers (history, Florida A&M Univ.) and Brown (author of Florida history books) have together produced an excellent, highly readable, and original history of the beginnings of the African Methodist Episcopal Church during the Reconstruction and its aftermath in Florida. African Methodism began in Florida in 1865 through figures such as William G. Stewart, the first ordained AME minister in the state, Charles H. Pearce, Florida's AME presiding elder, and Robert Meacham, pastor of Tallahassee's Bethel AME Church. Pearce and Meacham, along with numerous other AME pastors and church members, were active in Republican politics at state and local levels. One of the great strengths of this book is that it weaves intense internal AME church politics with broader political struggles for enfranchisement, equal treatment, and anti-lynching. It also deals with the perennial question of whether black clergy and churches should become involved in the sphere of electoral politics, with an excellent case study of the controversy between AME political activists Pearce and Meacham and advocates of noninvolvement, like Bishop Daniel Payne. The book delineates the founding of local AME churches and districts and contains photos of important churches, clergy, and their wives. Highly recommended to upper-division undergraduates, graduate students, and specialists in African American religious history and southern politics. L. H. Mamiya Vassar College