The Emanuel 9, Allen Report and the importance of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Black Liberation

It was a year ago on June 17th, 2015 when a lone gunman entered the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Charleston, South Carolina and murdered nine, including the church's senior pastor state senator Clementa C. Pickney. 21 year-old Dylan Roof was the gunman who stated that he had hoped to spark a race war. Roof knew what he was doing when he targeted the oldest African Methodist church in the South, which has always been a bastion of resistance for African Americans starting with Denmark Vesey who it is said, was responsible for planning a thwarted rebellion against whites in order to gain freedom for he and his people. The plan would have included a trip to the Republic of Haiti, if all had gone well. According to Wiki Vesey and five slaves were among the first group of men rapidly judged guilty by the secret proceedings of a city-appointed Court and condemned to death; they were executed by hanging on July 2, 1822. Vesey was about age 55. In later proceedings, some 30 additional followers were executed. His son was also judged guilty of conspiracy and was deported from the United States, along with many others. The church was destroyed and its minister expelled from the city.

On Friday June 3, Alanna Lockward presented the world premiere of her documentary Allen Report. Retracing Transnational African Methodism (2016) in Berlin as part of the BE.BOP 2016. Black Europe Body Politics, Call & Response. This film captures the enormous role the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) has played globally in the fight for social justice for people of African descent. The film traces the legacy of Bishop Richard Allen, founder of AME, in the African continent, the Caribbean and its place of origin, Philadelphia. The AME was founded in 1793 and became officially recognized after a long legal battle against white methodist as an independent denomination in 1816. This year is the Bicentennial of the foundation which is celebrated at Mother Bethel, http://2016generalconference.org/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Methodist_Episcopal_Church

The AME Church grew out of the Free African Society (FAS), which Richard Allen, Absalom Jones, and other free blacks established in Philadelphia in 1787. Allen led a small group who resolved to remain Methodist. They formed the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1793 because black Methodists in other middle Atlantic communities also encountered racism and desired religious autonomy. Allen called them to meet in Philadelphia in 1816 to form a new Wesleyan denomination, the "African Methodist Episcopal Church" (AME Church).

The film also emphasized the huge role the Haitian Revolution played in the Pan-Africanist imaginary of African Americans and specially in the AME.

This film is an important contribution to the heritage of Black people the world over and our historical and continual struggle of liberation.

Robbie Shilliam, Reader in International Relations, Queen Mary University of London had this to say upon seeing Allen Report:

First, Alanna Lockward is not simply critiquing, she is creatively retrieving. She is doing this expressly for a particular constituency – a congregation, even. But precisely because of that, her project speaks to the world. No abstracted critique required.

Second, Alanna Lockward is doing far more than rehearsing the trope of the Black Atlantic. As insightful as it was, that trope consigned Africa to the dustbin of history. It was geoculturally Hegelian. But in her report, Richard Allen sends us forward with ALL the continents. Nothing is left behind.

Third, Lockward shows us that enslaved peoples used everything at their disposal. And why shouldn’t they? Bible too. We should be careful not to exoticise spirituality in our decolonial quest. If we proceed by making colonial binaries between “true” spirituality and “western” religion we will cut our own selves up. "Allen Report. Retracing Transnational African Methodism" reveals that enslaved peoples reshaped the cross of suffering into a crossroads of healing.

Alanna Lockward presenting her "Allen Report. Retracing
Transnational African Methodism (2016)

Big ups to the max to this opera prima. What a lesson for us all. And, as it is written at Mother Bethel church:

“Ring the bells of freedom throughout the world. Rise, shine, give God the glory for the year of jubilee”.

This is the first ever Haitian-Dominican documentary film production. The website of the Haitian

Production company, http://www.africine.org/?menu=fichedist&no=2500 Amistad Films,

is under construction, please use this link instead. The other co-production companies are:

Art Labour Archives, Aurora Films, Master Media.

Here is the website of the documentary: https://allenreportdocumentary.wordpress.com/ and FB fan page: https://www.facebook.com/AllenReportAJourneyOnTransnationalAfricanMethodism/?fref=ts

The Spanish version of the film will be screened in July in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

Allen Report received the Fonprocine 2013 production award from the Dominican Republic Film Commission http://www.dgcine.gob.do/english.html.

The director of photography is the renowned Dominican cinematographer, Peyi Guzmán.

Blackgirl on Mars would like to take a moment to name the victims of this act of terrorism - and it is my wish that Allen Report will be viewed widely as it demonstrates the continuity and resilience of our forefathers and mothers the world over.

Cynthia Marie Graham Hurd (54) – Bible study member and manager for the Charleston County Public Library system; sister of Malcolm Graham.
Susie Jackson (87) – a Bible study and church choir member.
Ethel Lee Lance (70) – the church's sexton.
Depayne Middleton-Doctor (49) – a pastor who was also employed as a school administrator and admissions coordinator at Southern Wesleyan University.
Clementa C. Pinckney (41) – the church's pastor and a South Carolina state senator.
Tywanza Sanders (26) – a Bible study member; grandnephew of Susie Jackson.
Daniel Simmons (74) – a pastor who also served at Greater Zion AME Church in Awendaw.
Sharonda Coleman-Singleton (45) – a pastor; also a speech therapist and track coach at Goose Creek High School.
Myra Thompson (59) – a Bible study teacher.

Summary & additional information on ALLEN REPORT: RETRACING TRANSNATIONAL AFRICAN METHODISM

A documentary film-project written, directed and co-produced by Alanna Lockward

Cinematography by Peyi Guzmán

Music by Jorge Lockward and the AME Churches on location

Edited by Karim López

Additionaly Cinematography by Lanchel Brutus, William Córdova, Alanna Lockward, Tatiana Magloire

Winner of the production award Fonprocine 2013 of the Dominican Republic Film Commission (DGCINE)

A Co-production of Art Labour Archives, Amistad Films, Aurora Films and Master Media

Shot on location in Haiti, Dominican Republic, Germany, Namibia and the United States

Release Date

June 2016

Length

76 min

As the first Dominican-Haitian documentary co-production, this film retraces the liberation legacy of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) in five different locations united by common narratives related to struggles against enslavement and apartheid. It tells this story in three different languages (English, French, Spanish) in the voices of 19 interviewees. The AME Mother Bethel Church was founded by Bishop Richard Allen in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1794, as the first protestant church ministered exclusively by former enslaved people. It became a legally incorporated denomination in 1816. Upon the request of the Haitian government, The AME sent 6,000 individuals to the island of Saint-Domingue between 1824-1826, two decades after this first Black Republic in the world came into being. The Haitian Revolution is an integral part of the history of the AME in the island and it is also crucial to note that Richard Allen was deeply involved in the logistics of this immigration, the most important one of the XIX Century in Dominican history.