This date in 1779 marks the first publication of the hymn “Amazing Grace.” John Newton a White British man was responsible for writing one of the most beloved hymns of all times.
He was a British naval midshipman and a slave trader, who became a hymn writer and clergyman. He was on a homeward voyage while sailing his slave ship through a violent storm when he experienced what he referred to later as his “great deliverance.” Newton awoke in the middle of the night and prayed to God as the ship filled with water.
learn more*The birth of Catherine Ferguson in 1779 is celebrated on this date. She was a Black minister and advocate of childcare.
learn more*Daniel Coker’s birth is celebrated on this date, c-1780. He was a Black minister and publisher. He was enslaved as Isaac Wright in Baltimore, or Frederick County, Maryland, to Susan Coker, a white woman, and Daniel Wright, a black slave. Under a 1664 Maryland slave law, Wright was considered a slave as his father was a slave. During the […]
learn more*The birth of Peter Spencer is celebrated on this date in 1782. He was a religious leader and the father of the Independent Black Church Movement. Born a slave in Kent County, Maryland, Spencer was manumitted upon the death of his master and moved to Wilmington. A mechanic with some knowledge of the law, Spencer […]
learn more*The birth of Jarena Lee in 1783 is marked on this date. She was a Black preacher and abolitionist.
learn more*On this date in 1784, we celebrate the birth of Mary Lange, O.S.P. She was a Black religious sister, the foundress of the Oblate Sisters of Providence, the religious congregation established to allow African American women to enter religious life in the Catholic Church. The cause for her beatification has been opened, and thus she is honored as a Servant of God by the Catholic Church. Elizabeth Clarisse Lange […]
learn more*The birth of Jehu Jones, Jr. in 1786 is celebrated on this date. He was a Black slave and minister.
learn more*Quakers and American abolition are affirmed on this date in 1787. Quakers (the Religious Society of Friends) were the only large religious American denomination to make it a requirement of membership to refuse to enslave people. Quakers struggled internally for a century to come to this place. Quakers such as John Woolman and Benjamin Lay […]
learn moreWilliam Paul Quinn was born on this date in 1788. He was a Black religious leader and the fourth Bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church.
learn more*John B. Meachum was born on this date in 1789. He was a Black minister, businessman, and educator. John Berry Meachum was born into slavery in Goochland County, Virginia. His master took him to North Carolina and then Kentucky. Meachum learned several trades, including carpentry. At 21, he earned enough money from carpentry to purchase […]
learn more*John Mason Peck was born on this date in 1789. He was a white-American Baptist abolitionist, teacher, and missionary. Born in Litchfield, Connecticut, to a farming family, Peck received little formal education but, in 1807, began to teach school. He was converted to Christianity at a revival at his Congregational Church. On May 8, 1809, […]
learn more*The birth of Richard Preston is celebrated on this date, c. 1791. He was a Black Canadian religious leader and abolitionist. Richard Preston is believed to have been born into slavery in Virginia but gained an education and saved enough to buy his freedom in 1816. He went to Nova Scotia in search of his […]
learn moreOn this date in 1791, the groundbreaking for the Bethel AME Church of Philadelphia occurred. Mother Bethel Church (as it is called) was a stop on the Underground Railroad. Bethel AME is the second-oldest Black congregation (after St. Thomas in Philadelphia) in the country.
learn more*On this date, in 1792, Charles Grandison Finney was born. He was a white-American Presbyterian minister and abolitionist. Born in Warren, Connecticut, Finney was the youngest of nine children. The son of farmers who moved to the upstate frontier of Jefferson County, New York, after the American Revolutionary War, Finney never attended college. His leadership abilities, musical skill, six-foot-three-inch stature, and piercing eyes gained […]
learn more*Edward Mitchell was born on this date in 1794. He was a Black minister. Edward A. Mitchell was born in Martinique, West Indies. Mitchell became affiliated with Dartmouth College by President Francis Brown (1815-1820). President Brown was ill and made a trip to the South, accompanied on the return trip by Edward Mitchell, who remained with […]
learn more
