The late Dean of African American history, Dr. John Hope Franklin, once wrote, “We must go beyond textbooks, go out into the bypaths and untrodden depths of the wilderness and travel and explore and tell the world the glories of our journey.” The African Methodist Episcopal Church must not only continue to research, write and discuss the wondrous legacy of the founding, contribution, and impact of our Zion.  We must also insure that we are a part of the living, dynamic, developing faith history of the world.  There are still too many who are unaware the African Methodist Episcopal Church exists or of its formidable presence in the development of the church universal.

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ARCHIVES:  We continue to seek contributions to rebuild the A.M.E. Archive in Nashville.  Some wish to charge the A.M.E. Church to use its own heritage because at some point in time, we relinquished ownership. The Connectional church possesses an inestimable amount of archival material.  We seek assistance in locating, identifying, collecting, collating and properly maintaining our AME history. We are working on digitizing our historical information and planning to upload it to the website.

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THE AME REVIEW:  Eight years following the initial publication of The A.M.E. Magazine by The Reverend George Hogarth, the 1884 General Conference changed the name to The A.M.E. Review and elected The Reverend Benjamin Tucker Tanner as editor.  The Reverend Tanner had served as General Secretary and publisher of The Christian Recorder (1868-1884) and elected the eighteenth Bishop of the church in 1888.

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We will continue to work together to produce an updated history of the African Methodist Episcopal Church comprised of essays and biographical entries on the leadership, departments, offices, educational institutions, clergy and laity, local churches, missions, ministries collaborations and activities since 1948.  We solicit your articles, book lists, reflections, sermons and lectures, for publication in the quarterly journal. With your help, we will produce a journal that the Church and the world will anticipate, read, discuss and share.

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RESEARCH AND SCHOLARSHIP:  One of the goals of the Department is a biennial colloquium or gathering of scholars, activist and practitioners to address a number of relevant topics, enhance writing and publication, collaborative research and scholarship, and collective archive building.  We solicit information on A.M.E. scholars.