Mother African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church
Our licensed tour guide will share with you the history of this church.
"The Freedom Church" was formed in 1796 by African-American members of the predominantly white John Street Methodist Church. Although that church was abolitionist in its orientation, racial segregation was still enforced in other ways. As one A.M.E. Zion historian described it:
The colored members were not permitted to come to the sacrament (Holy Communion) until all the white members, even children, had communedhe first church foundation stone was laid in 1819, and the first rector, serving from 1826 to 1840, was the Rev. Peter Williams, Jr., a leading abolitionist and the first African-American Episcopal priest in New York. He was one of three blacks who served on the first executive committee of the American Anti-Slavery Society