The mural is a montage of moving events, a kaleidoscope of colors, taking the viewer through a visual calendar of events. The perspective of the painting draws the viewer’s attention into the mural.
The upper left side pictures the African man and woman as descendants of a great line of kings and queens. The cultural impact made by Africans extends from the mathematical genius of the pyramids to the intriguing mystery of the sphinx.
Columns of the great Luxor Temples built by Amenhotep III, and enlarged by Tutankhamen, frame the Nile and the Valley of the Kings. The intellectual and scientific achievements of Africa’s past still confound the architects and scholars of today.
The mural depicts a society of peaceful, artistic people with a democratic form of government, a marketing system, and a knowledge of navigation and world travel.
Then in abrupt transition, the mural shows this people enslaved in a somber fearful assembly, destined to work and toil without human freedom for over 400 years. Strangely enough, this takes place in a country, which in the latter part of the eighteenth century, was struggling for its own release from oppression, spurred on by such greats as Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Monroe, and Jackson.
Bearing this paradox in mind, we applaud those freedom fighters who fought for individual liberty both for an enslaved country and for an enslaved people: John Brown, Crispus Attucks, Denmark Vesey, Nat Turner, Frederick Douglas, and Richard Allen.
Richard Allen is pictured in the upper right side of the mural. He was a slave who bought his freedom and that of his brother by chopping wood after the work had ended.
Arriving late for worship at the St. George Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia, Richard Allen and a group of Africans knelt to pray, in what was for them an undesignated area. Refusing to move, yet not being allowed to continue in prayer, Richard Allen led the historic walk-out that began the black church movement in America.
Allen chopped wood, hauled bricks, worked in the fields and as a chimney-sweep, to buy a blacksmith’s shop for worship. This was Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, with the first pulpit being an anvil.
Sarah Allen, pictured with her husband, worked alongside, to see that AME ministers were adequately clothed, fed, and kept in moral uplift. She was the first woman to serve as a missionary within the A.M.E. Church, a Church dedicated to racial equality and the liberating gospel of Jesus.
(In eighteenth century America, the designation “African” was used more generally than the term “Negro.” Therefore, the designation, African Methodist Episcopal Church).
The infant Church came to prominence when the great yellow fever struck Philadelphia in 1793, killing more than 5,000 people, mainly white. Richard Allen and his followers, taking the task that all others fled from, cared for the sick and buried the dead.
His outgoing concern led him to further the career of the great poetess, Phyllis Wheatly; to visit the imprisoned with the gospel; to endorse the ministerial aspirations of Jarena Lee, (called the greatest female pulpiteer in the A.M.E. Church); to travel 2,325 miles, and preach 178 sermons in the one year alone, 1817.
Throughout the mural are symbolic representations of the many firsts of the A.M.E. Church.
(1) The first black church to own a piece of real estate in America. (In 1793 it purchased the land at Sixth and Lombard in Philadelphia, on which it later erected a church, Mother Bethel). (2) The Church published the world’s oldest black religious weekly, the Christian Recorder, 1841. (3) The Church was the first black institution to promote finance, and to administer a program of higher learning: Bishop Daniel A. Payne purchased Wilberforce University in 1863. Ten other centers of higher education followed in its wake, as well as the nation’s oldest black hospital. (4) The Church was the first black institution to go to Africa to help other blacks. Its missionary outreach started over 150 years ago. (5) The A.M.E. Church was the first to enter the publishing business: The A.M.E. Discipline (1817), and the A.M.E. Hymnal (1818). (6) The first black chaplain was Rev. H.M. Turner. (7) The first elected black president of Howard University was Rev. J.A. Gregg, who chose instead to become a bishop. As such he was the first black leader selected by the United States to make inspection trips to war areas. (8) Bishop P.R. Wright Jr. published and edited the largest book ever compiled exclusively by black people. (9) William T. Vernon served as Registrar of the U.S. Treasury under the administration of President Theodore Roosevelt. He signed certain paper currency, of the nation. He later became a bishop in the A.M.E. Church. (10) William H. Heard was the Minister to Liberia, and a member of the South Carolina legislature from 1880-1882. He later became a bishop. (11) Bishop S.L. Greene was the first to sign the documents bringing into being the National Council of Churches, the most important movement in protestant cooperation the world had ever known, November 28, 1950, Cleveland, Ohio. (12) R. H. Cain, Senator from South Carolina, 1877-79, was a preacher in the A.M.E. Church; President of Paul Quinn College, Waco, Texas; elected a bishop from South Carolina. (13) Frederick Douglass, the great abolitionist, attended Metropolitan A.M.E. Church in Washington, D.C. He gave the two candlesticks that now stand on the pulpit of the great church. (14) The first black United States senator was an A.M.E. minister, Rev. Hiram Revels of Mississippi.
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The work that God gave the hands of Richard Allen inspired great works from others like BIDDY MASON. Born a slave, this great woman was determined to buy her freedom as well as to do God’s work.
A person of strength and faith, she walked from Mississippi to California, herding sheep and cattle to earn freedom for herself and her daughter.
After obtaining freedom, Biddy Mason bought land and property and became one of the biggest land owners among blacks in Los Angeles.
She started worship services in her home on South Spring Street, (becoming the first black church in Los Angeles), which is now First A.M.E. Church.
The mural, in picturing a scientist, and a spaceperson, conveys the belief that through God all things are possible: “If you ask anything in my name, I will do it.” John 14:12.
The lower center portion of the mural shows the way. The Light represents The Word and its power as it comes through ministry. The people represent the body of believers, giving praise and thanks for the light which has shined in the darkness.
The church represents an avenue or channel through which the word is given. Pictured are four of the ministers who have served at FAME throughout the years: Rev. Frederick D. Jordan, who pastored at a pivotal point and later became an AME Bishop; Rev. Alvia A. Shaw; Rev. H.H. Brookins, pastor during construction in 1969 and later became an AME Bishop, and Pastor Cecil L. Murray, who served during mortgage retirement and a tremendous phase of expansion.
The light and the clouds represent the eternal heavens, God’s light and life, flowing equally to all who accept the glow, regardless of race, creed, or color.
The rainbow stretches across the generations and mocks time as an ever-flowing stream that sweeps away all conditions – except the conditions of God’s radiant love, beauty, color, and life. The rainbow is symbolic of our covenant with God as stated in Deuteronomy 9.
The African Methodist Episcopal Church works toward the spiritual community of all humankind under the Motto: God Our Father, Christ Our Redeemer, Man Our Brother, Woman Our Sister.
First African Methodist Episcopal Church, by its very existence, recognizes that human social, political, and moral development, are a living hope, as long as we maintain our portion of the tested and proved contract between God and US.
EDDIE L. EDWARDS. Fine arts painter, illustrator, Lecturer and Poet par excellence. designs works that allow you to see the world from an artist’s perspective, which is reflective of himself and his environment. Mr. Edwards was born in Pineville, LA. He migrated to California in 1950. In 1969 he opened the first culturally oriented art gallery in San Diego. The gallery became known as the Edwards S.E. Community Arts and Cultural Center. From 1970 to 1980 the center was designed to give youth and adults a place to develop their creativity and cultural awareness.
Mr. Edwards has lectured and exhibited throughout the United States. Institutions at which he has exhibited over the years include: Portland State, McMinnville University, and Willamette University (Oregon), San Diego State, UCSD, USD, and Laney College (Oakland). He has lectured in Jackson, MS; Atlanta, GA; and many other places too numerous to mention. Mr. Edwards works in all media. He is noted for his vivid colors on oils or pastels, which he calls “Earth Tones”. His black and white renderings are breathtaking. He has mastered the control of the soft lead pencil.
