Daniel Payne

Bishop Payne. Frontispiece of Recollections of Seventy Years

Daniel Alexander Payne (February 24, 1811–November 2, 1893) was an American bishop, educator, college administrator and author. He became a bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) and was a major shaper of it in the 19th century. He was one of the founders of Wilberforce University in Ohio. In 1863 he became its first president, and the first African-American president of a college in the United States. By quickly organizing missionary support of freedmen in the South after the Civil War, he gained 250,000 new members for the AME Church during the Reconstruction era, with congregations down the East Coast to Florida and west to Texas.

Early life and education

Daniel Payne was born free in Charleston, South Carolina on February 24, 1811, of African, European and Native American descent. His parents London and Martha Payne were part of the "Brown Elite" of free blacks.^[1] Both died before he reached maturity. While his great aunt assumed Daniel's care, the Minors' Moralist Society assisted Payne's early education.^[2] Payne was raised in the Methodist Church like his parents. He also studied at home, teaching himself mathematics, physical science, and classical languages. In 1829 at the age of 18, he opened his first school.^[1]

After the Nat Turner Rebellion of 1831, like other southern states South Carolina passed legislation restricting the rights of people of color and slaves. They enacted a law on April 1, 1835, which made teaching literacy to free people of color and slaves illegal and subject to fines and imprisonment.^[3] With the passage of this law, Payne had to close his school.

In May 1835, Payne sailed from Charleston to Philadelphia in search of further education. Declining the Methodists' offer, which was contingent on his going on a mission to Liberia, Payne studied at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg in Pennsylvania. He did not complete ordination, having to drop out of school because of problems with eyesight.^[4]

Marriage and family

Payne married in 1847, but his wife died during the first year of marriage from complications of childbirth. In 1854 he married again, to Eliza Clark of Cincinnati.

Career in AME Church

By 1840 Payne started another school. He joined the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) in 1842, concluding like the founder, Richard Allen, that a visible and independent black denomination was a strong argument against slavery and racism. Payne worked to improve education for ministers, recommending a wide variety of classes so they could effectively lead the people. In the ensuing decades' debates about order and emotionalism in the African Methodist Church, he sided consistently with order.^[5]

The AME's first task was "to improve the ministry; the second to improve the people."^[6] At a denominational meeting in Baltimore in 1842, he recommended a full program of study for ministers, to include: English grammar, geography, arithmetic, ancient history, modern history, ecclesiastical history, and theology. At the 1844 AME General Conference, he called for a "regular course of study for prospective ordinees", in the belief they would lift up their parishioners.^[6] In 1845 Payne established a short-lived AME seminary, and succeeded in gradually raising the preparation required for ministers.

Payne also directed reforms at the style of music, introducing trained choirs and instrumental music to church practice. He supported the requirement that ministers be literate. Payne continued throughout his career to build the institution of the church, establishing literary and historic societies and encouraging order. At times he came into conflict with those who wanted to ensure that ordinary people could advance in the church. Especially after expansion of the church in the South, where different styles of worship had prevailed, there were continuing tensions about the direction of the denomination.^[7]

Bishop and college president

In 1848 Bishop William Paul Quinn named Payne as the historiographer of the AME Church. In 1852 Rev. Payne was elected and consecrated the 6th bishop of the AME denomination.

Together with Rev. Lewis Woodson and two other African Americans representing the AME Church, and 18 European-American representatives of the Methodist Episcopal Church, Payne served on the founding board of directors of Wilberforce University in Ohio in 1856. Among the trustees who supported the abolitionist cause and African-American education was Salmon P. Chase, then governor of Ohio, who served as Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court under President Abraham Lincoln.^[8] The denominations jointly sponsored Wilberforce in 1856 to provide collegiate education to African Americans. It was the first historically black college in which African Americans were part of the founding.^[9]

Wilberforce was located in an area that had been a popular summer resort of white southern planters, who often brought their mistresses of color and "natural" (illegitimate0 multi-racial children with them. In one of the paradoxical results of slavery, by 1860 most of the college's 200 paying students were mixed-race offspring of wealthy southern planters, who gave their children the education in Ohio which they could not get in the South.^[9] The men were examples of white fathers who did not abandon their mixed-race children, but passed on important social capital in the form of education and inheritances.

When the Civil War reduced both church support and the number of paying students, the college had to close temporarily because of financial difficulties. In 1863 Payne persuaded the AME Church to buy the debt and take over the college outright. They had to reinvest in it two years later, when a southern sympathizer damaged buildings by fire. Payne helped organize fundraising and rebuilding, including a $10,000 donation from founding board member Salmon P. Chase. Payne was selected as president, the first African-American college president in the United States. He led the college until 1877.^[10] Payne traveled twice to Europe, where he consulted with other Methodist clergy and studied their education programs.

In April 1865 after the Civil War, Payne returned to the South for the first time in 30 years. Knowing how to build an organization, he took nine missionaries and worked with others in Charleston, South Carolina to establish the AME denomination. He organized missionaries, committees and teachers to bring the AME church to freedmen. A year later, the church had grown by 50,000 congregants in the South.^[1] By the end of the Reconstruction era, AME congregations existed from Florida to Texas, and more than a quarter million (250,000) new adherents had been brought into the church. While it had a northern center, the church was heavily influenced by this growth in the South. The incorporation of many congregants with different practices and traditions of worship and music styles reflected the South's African-American culture and helped shape the national church.^[11]

Writer

• 1888, Recollections of Seventy Years, a memoir.
• 1891, The History of the A. M. E. Church, the first history of this groundbreaking denomination.

Payne died on November 2, 1893, having served the AME Church for more than 50 years.

Legacy and honors

• Daniel Payne College, a historically black college that operated in Alabama from 1889 to 1979, was named in his honor. After the college closed, the city of Birmingham renamed a street Daniel Payne Drive.
• The Payne Theological Seminary in Wilberforce, Ohio is named in his honor.
• Daniel Alexander Payne, a Pennsylvania State Historical Marker at 239 n. Washington St. at Gettysburg College.^[12]

References

1. ^ ^{a b c} "Daniel Payne", This Far by Faith, PBS, 2003, 13 Jan 2009
2. ^ Daniel Payne, Recollections of Seventy Years, Ayer, reprint, 1991. pp11-15.
3. ^ Payne, Daniel. Recollections of Seventy Years. Ayer - reprint, 1991, pp. 27-28
4. ^ James T. Campbell, Songs of Zion, New York: Oxford University Press, 1995, p. 37, accessed 13 Jan 2009
5. ^ James T. Campbell, Songs of Zion, New York: Oxford University Press, 1995, p. 39, accessed 13 Jan 2009
6. ^ ^{a b} James T. Campbell, Songs of Zion, New York: Oxford University Press, 1995, p.38, accessed 13 Jan 2009
7. ^ James T. Campbell, Songs of Zion, New York: Oxford University Press, 1995, pp. 43-47, accessed 13 Jan 2009
8. ^ Payne, Daniel. "Recollections of Twenty Years". Ayer-reprint, 1991. p. 226.
9. ^ ^{a b} James T. Campbell, Songs of Zion, New York: Oxford University Press, 1995, pp. 259-260, accessed 13 Jan 2009
10. ^ "Daniel Payne", This Far by Faith, PBS, accessed 15 Jan 2009
11. ^ James T. Campbell, Songs of Zion, New York: Oxford University Press, 1995, pp. 53-54, accessed 13 Jan 2009
12. ^ http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WMTGF_Daniel_Alexander_Payne_1811_1893

Further reading

Howard Gregg, History of the AME Church

Persondata
Name	Payne, Daniel
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1811
Place of birth
Date of death	1893
Place of death