AME Women: Activism Within Laity
Author Jualynne E. Dodson investigates the roles of women during the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) movement in her book Engendering Church: Women, Power, and the AME Church. AME was born out of a “quest for spiritual expression” for Christian African-Americans, which could not be found within the racist, oppressive systems of worship often perpetuated by dominantly white European American churches (8). African-American women are accredited as the backbone of the AME movement; in fact, Dodson writes that women were “the history and heritage of the denomination” (13).
Although these women were powerful movers and shakers in the formation of AME, they were denied authoritative positions within the church. The prohibition of women in ministry and the selectivity of gender within the church’s conference system prompted AME women to “acquire other sources of power and take actions that would lead to structural changes to include women” (14). These women therefore assumed agency within the laity of the church, while still adhering to the societal, domestic expectations for women during this time period.
The financial situation of activists during this period could have limited the roles of power for women. Dodson remarks on the socioeconomics of African-American during the Victorian Era: few were “rich or financially well endowed,” and many were recognized as third class citizens by society (10,17). AME women fulfilled traditionally domestic roles in the church, such as teaching Sunday school, cleaning, decorating, and organizing events such as bible study and prayer bands. Financial disadvantages could have curtailed AME women’s availability for positions of power outside of domestic commitments.
It can be argued that AME women would found the “nurtured collective identity and community solidarity” they had sought within the private sphere of the church (12). As members of the laity, women could exercise power at the local level without the competition of hierarchy as exemplified by higher authorities of the church (20). The connections made in the laity could have fostered bell hooks’ definition of Sisterhood. Women of similar backgrounds and experiences could seek refuge within each other and their roles of power in the church. Sisterhood would have strengthened the laity, creating a more determined and formidable foundation to the AME movement. As Dodson writes, “a denomination cannot exist if its laity is not stable” (23).
The roles appropriated by AME women are evocative of the paths taken by the Grimké sisters: in both instances, activism was sacrificed for expectations of traditional womanhood. It is fair to question why leaders of both the radical movements for AME and abolition would have allowed or encouraged female members to assume power in the private or domestic sphere. One key term Dodson uses in describing the AME’s approach for acceptance in a white-dominated society is respectability. The movements for AME and abolition occurred during the Victorian Era, which equated True Women with domesticity: this was a “complex that was tacitly sanctioned by the largest US political, governmental, and economic order” and inescapable especially for the marginalized community associated with these movements (17). Several wives of AME leaders and Angelina Grimké relinquished aspects of personal activist autonomy by acting in their husbands’ interests and assuming roles of wifedom (15). In order to make radical activism more approachable to outsiders in the Victorian Era, AME and abolitionists could have employed tactics of domesticity for female members in order to normalize their movements.
What should we make of women’s power resting solely in laity? Is this understandable for the Victorian Era or in regards to societal/financial limits? Did Sisterhood of laity affirm or stagnate the recognition of women’s power in AME? Is Dodson’s assertion of respectability an insinuation that the AME movement garnered the same success if women had spearheaded authoritative roles in the clergy? Is it fair to compare the societal constrictions experienced by the Grimké sisters to those of AME women?
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Dodson, Jualynne E. “Chapter 1: Formation of a Religious Organization; Chapter 2: Building a Critical Mass.” Engendering Church: Women, Power, and the AME Church. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002. pp. 8-23. Print.
