1834: Henry McNeal Turner was born free in Abbeville, South Carolina (Newberry Courthouse) to Hardy and Sarah Turner (pictured).
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Image courtesy of Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Howard University.
Events in the Life of Bishop Henry McNeal Turner
Bishop Henry McNeal Turner (1834-1915) was an author, civil rights activist, and a bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church. Born near Abbeville, South Carolina, to a free Black family, Turner did not receive formal education as a child, as it was illegal to teach Blacks to read in South Carolina. He was later hired as a janitor at a law firm. The clerks, impressed with his intelligence and prodigious ability to recall reams of information from memory, tutored him.
The young Turner joined the Methodist church in 1848, receiving his license to preach in 1853 when he was nineteen years old. He developed a reputation as an effective preacher as he travelled the South evangelizing as a lay exhorter.
1851–1857: Turner worked as a traveling preacher for the UMC church
1856: Turner married Eliza Peacher.
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Image courtesy of Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Howard University.
1858: Soon after discovering African Methodism, Turner joined the AME church in 1858. In the following year, he received his license to preach in the AME conference. Ordained in 1860, he was assigned in Baltimore, Maryland, where he attended Trinity College, an AME training seminary. This was his first experience of formal schooling. Significantly, Turner was refined and groomed in homiletics, grammar, and argumentation by the memorialized Miss Mary Elizabeth Harden of Baltimore, Maryland. .
1858–1860: Turner studied at Trinity College Seminary Baltimore, MD
1862–1865: Turner got his first pastor assignment in Union Bethel AME Church in Washington, DC
1865–1867: Turner organized AME churches in Georgia
1866–1867: Turner worked for the Freedmen's Bureau in Georgia
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Art and Picture Collection, The New York Public Library. "Glimpses At The Freedmen'S Bureau -- Issuing Rations To The Old And Sick." New York Public Library Digital Collections.
As a Black chaplain appointed by President Abraham Lincoln to serve in the First Regiment of US Colored Troops during the Civil War, Turner was embedded with his regiment and saw action in the Virginia Theater. Turner subsequently worked for the Freedmen's Bureau and, during Reconstruction, helped organize the Georgia Republican Party. In 1868, white politicians forced Turner and other fellow Black politicians out of office after he was elected the Representative for Macon, Georgia. Later, President Ulysses Grant appointed Turner as postmaster. At the Customs House of Georgia, he fulfilled his role before focusing his attention and prodigious talents on the development of the AME church.
1867: Turner served as a delegate to Georgia
Constitutional Convention.
1868: Turner was elected in Georgia State Legislature
1870–1876: Turner worked as pastor in Savannah, GA
1876–1880: Turner served as Business Manager AME Book Concern, Philadelphia, PA.
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Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Jean Blackwell Hutson Research and Reference Division, The New York Public Library. "A. M. E. Book Concern; Publication department; The Christian Recorder." New York Public Library Digital Collections.
1880: Turner was elected 12th AME Bishop
Turner was a prolific author, activist, and advocate for African Methodism. He established four AME conferences in Africa, planted churches across the South, and founded schools and missions in Sierra Leone and South Africa. Turner wrote numerous essays, articles, books, pamphlets, and letters. Many of these were published and/or advertised in the AME newspaper The Christian Recorder. He also established three newspapers: the Southern Recorder, Voice of Missions, and Voice of the People. Moreover, the AME church saw tremendous growth under Turner’s leadership as the twelfth consecrated bishop, particularly in his home state of South Carolina and later in Georgia where he spent many years.
1889: Wife Eliza Peacher Turner died.
1890: Turner established Morris Brown College Atlanta, GA
1893: Turner married Martha Elizabeth Dewitt. Dewitt was beloved by the members of the AME church. She died sometime before 1900. In the same year, he called for a National Convention in Cincinnati, OH.
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Image courtesy of Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Howard University.