"Laborers within the winery of the Lord is church heritage with no the halo. but, it really is respectful of the nuances bizarre to the AMEC fellowship. it truly is church heritage in painstaking aspect, yet now not in isolation to the social, monetary, and political dynamics of the interval. this can be strong writing, stable learn, and stable scholarship."--Bishop Adam J. Richardson, Jr., nineteenth Episcopal District, AME Church, Johannesburg, South Africa

"This examine of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Florida makes an important contribution to our wisdom of African American, Florida, and Southern heritage. It treats excess of simply faith -- it illuminates the full post-Civil struggle period in Florida."--Joe M. Richardson, Florida country University

"A exceptional and vigorous paintings that brings alive black Methodism within the past due nineteenth century. this can be a really very important and unique contribution to the heritage of Reconstruction in Florida, packed with clean insights." -- Stephen W. Angell, Florida A&M University

"Describes the complex courting among black church improvement and black political participation through the Reconstruction period and its aftermath. The authors persuasively show how black faith prolonged its security to freedmen in either sacred and secular settings." -- Dennis C. Dickerson, Vanderbilt University

Written by way of eminent historians, Laborers within the winery of the Lord examines the background of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Florida from the start of Reconstruction to the establishment of Jim Crow segregation, a interval while the AME Church performed a vital position within the spiritual, cultural, and political lives of black Floridians. The booklet starts with an outline of slave faith and the 1st stirrings of African Methodism earlier than 1865 and culminates with the bold demanding situations that confronted the church by way of 1895.

Not merely did the AME Church store lives for Christ, it emerged as a strength to be reckoned with in politics. males reminiscent of Charles H. Pearce and Robert Meacham grew to become powerhouses in kingdom and native affairs in addition to within the church. They and their fellow ministers fought for the participation of blacks within the governing method and promoted schooling and employment for all blacks and terrible whites. quite a few others staunchly supported the becoming nationwide phenomenon of the temperance stream. Drawing on fundamental assets resembling church newspapers and formerly ignored files, the authors additionally relate the gripping drama of the internal dynamics of AME church existence and look at the influence of character interactions on its leadership.

This case research of an self sustaining church that produced vast non secular and civil freedoms for African americans deals an in depth account of the successes and screw ups of 1 of the biggest and foremost associations in post-Civil battle and late-19th-century Florida.

Larry Eugene Rivers is unusual Professor of background at Florida A&M college, Tallahassee, and the writer of Slavery in Florida: Territorial Days to Emancipation (UPF, 2000). His paintings has been famous with the Florida ancient Society’s Arthur W. Thompson Prize and the organization for the examine of African American existence and History’s Carter G. Woodson Prize.

Canter Brown, Jr., is the writer of many works on Florida historical past, together with Florida’s Peace River Frontier (UPF, 1991); Ossian Bingley Hart, Florida’s Loyalist Reconstruction Governor; and Florida’s Black Public officers, 1867-1924. He has obtained the Florida historic Society’s Rembert W. Patrick publication Award and the yank organization for kingdom and native History’s certificates of Commendation. He has taught at Florida A&M University.