s, with white or black pastors as desired, and associations
of black churches. In 1866 the Methodist General Conference authorized
separate congregations, quarterly conferences, annual conferences, even
a separate jurisdiction, with Negro preachers, presiding elders, and
bishops--but all to no avail. Every, Northern political, religious, or
military agency in the South worked for separation, and Negro preachers
were not long in seeing the greater advantages which they would have in
independent churches.

Much of the separate organization was accomplished in mutual good
will, particularly in the Baptist ranks. The Reverend I. T. Tichenor, a
prominent Baptist minister, has described the process as it took place
in the First Baptist Church in Montgomery. The church had nine hundred
members, of whom six hundred were black. The Negroes received a regular
organization of their own under the supervision of the white pastors.
When a separation of the two bodies was later deemed desirable, it was
inaugurated by a conference of the Negroes which passed a resolution
couched in the kindliest terms, suggesting the wisdom of the division,
and asking the concurrence of the white church in such action. The white
church cordially approved the movement, and the two bodies united in
erecting a suitable house of worship for the Negroes. Until the new
church was completed, both congregations continued to occupy jointly the
old house of worship. The new house was paid for in large measure by the
white members of the church and by individuals in the community. As soon
as it was completed, the colored church moved into it with its pastor,
board of deacons, committees of all sorts, and the whole machinery
of church life went into action without a jar. Similar accommodations
occurred in all the states of the South.

The Methodists lost the greater part of their Negro membership to
two organizations which came down from the North in 1865--the African
Methodist Episcopal Church and the African Methodist Episcopal Church,
Zion. Large numbers also went over to the Northern Methodist Church.
After losing nearly three hundred thousand members, the Southern
Methodists came to the conclusion that the remaining seventy-eight
thousand Negroes would be more comfortable in a separate organization
and therefore began in 1866 the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church, with
bishops, conferences, and all the accompaniments of the parent Methodist
Church, which co