The Legacy of Anna E. Hall, African American Missionary to Liberia

This article, which tells the life story of Anna E. Hall, highlights the significant role that this African American missionary played in Liberia for the US Methodist Episcopal Church in the early twentieth century. The latter half of the nineteenth century saw increased migration of free African Americans as ministers . . . and missionaries overseas, especially to Africa. Standing as a paragon in missionary ventures, Anna E. Hall represents one of many who were responsible for the resurgence of Christianity in Africa and provides an exemplar for missionary service.

Between Free Grace and Liberty

African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Bishop Richard Allen’s hymnody, when coupled with his anti-racist activism and his encouragement of communal music-making in worship, evoked eschatological freedom from sin and called for socio-political freedom for people of African descent in the years following the founding of the United States of America. To fully comprehend Allen’s hymnody, one should consider the urgency he bore for freedom and justice for black people in America. Allen (1760–1831) first published a hymnal in 1801, followed by a revised edition in the same year; the included hymns articulate his belief that people could receive individual freedom from both sin and God’s wrath at the final judgement. Allen held to the evangelical hope of Christ’s return which would inaugurate the emancipation of all enslaved people; likewise, eschatological justice must include freedom from political bondage for people of African descent in America. While holding the expectation of eschatological freedom and justice, he adamantly pursued this political freedom during his lifetime, as evidenced in his theo-political writings against slavery and other forms of racial injustice. Consequently, While the lyrics in his 1801 hymnbooks do not explicitly speak against contemporaneous racial injustice, Allen’s life’s work and prose suggest that this is an integral part of the context for Allen’s compilation of eschatological hymnody.

“Welcome to the Ransomed”

Less than a week after the carnage at Shiloh, Congress voted to free enslaved people and to compensate slaveowners in Washington, DC. Daniel A. Payne, a bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, visited President Lincoln and encouraged him to sign the bill, which he did on April 16, 1862. That same week, Payne preached his most influential sermon, Welcome to the Ransomed, or, Duties of the Colored Inhabitants of the District of Columbia. Lincoln impressed Payne as a man of “real greatness.” High praise for Lincoln would be in short supply, especially from African Americans. Lincoln had wavered on emancipation, many believed, and he needed to pursue a harder war focused on abolishing slavery. The war grew in intensity, and so did debates over slavery’s role in the conflict. Through this phase of the war, Americans turned to scripture to defend an even more brutal war for and against emancipation.