A Profile of Religion and Politics: Bethel AME of Tallahassee
By: Rev. Quardricos Bernard Driskell, Contributing Writer
Religion was not the story in this year’s midterm elections, but the national and local vote was not without some compelling stories with implications for faith in American politics. Two Muslim women elected to Congress for the first time; the number of Jewish women increased as well as the number of Religious progressives also increased.
The Black church, historically and presently, has transformed itself into spiritual politicized organizations. It has long established the importance of voter turnout and other forms of political participation and engagement. The AME Church has assumed a vital role in the life of African Americans in the face of the oppressive conditions under which many in the early 18thcentury lived and still live today.
One such example in the AME Church is Bethel AME Church of Tallahassee where Reverend Dr. Julius H. McAllister, Jr.is the pastor joined in leadership by his wife, Deana Young McAllister.
Bethel AME, Tallahassee is a tremendous epicenter of social justice, community and civic engagement, and political empowerment. I was sent to Bethel to profile the work and political mobilization of the church and its congregants during the 2018 Midterm elections.
With five people out of Bethel AME running for public office: Darryl Jones, candidate for Leon County School Board District 3; the Honorable Augustus Aikens, Leon County Judge Seat 4; the Honorable Bill Proctor, County Commissioner, District 1; Ms. Monique Richardson, candidate Leon County Judge Seat 3 and Mayor Andrew Gillum, Florida Democratic Nominee for Governor – civic leadership and political engagement matters to Bethel.
Each one of the candidates and public officials cited the tremendous impact the church has had on their life. Mr. Jones, raised in the Baptist tradition, came to Bethel in the 1980s as a college student of Florida A&M University and has stayed ever since becoming, at one time, executive director of Bethel Community Development Corporation (CDC). “Bethel is concerned with the whole person – spiritual and communal. It is because of Bethel that I decided to get involved in politics.”
Judge Aikens, who also joined Bethel in the 1980s and has been a county judge since 1998, echoed similar sentiments. “The church encourages community outreach. I believe churches should do it. The mandate is to serve. It reinforces my faith, this is what Jesus Christ would want us to do – go out and serve others. Bethel provides an atmosphere where you can learn the Word of God and provide a service to the community.”
One hundred and fifty-three years ago, a group of Black Christians in Tallahassee walked out of the then Trinity Methodist Episcopal Church. Led by the Reverend Robert Meacham, a former slave preacher, these courageous freedmen began their worship in a rough lean-to of leafy saplings called a brush arbor, located at the corner of Duval and Virginia Streets, and formed Bethel AME.
Rev. Dr. McAllister, Jr. is proud that the Bethel AME Church has been in the center of the community’s progress and advancement. With an impressive 75 ministries, including a partnership, through the CDC, with the City Of Tallahassee through which four homes have been renovated this year, one reserved for veterans; the Thanksgiving Basket Program where typically 450 baskets are given to needy families in the Tallahassee that feed roughly 2500 families; the Alzheimer’s Program; and the A Life Recovery Center (ALRC), a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center. Through such as these, the church embodies the missionary vision of Bishop Richard Allen to “feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, visit the sick, cheer the fallen and visit the imprisoned.”
Long-time Bethel member Commissioner Proctor notes the church’s mission. “When you are reared in the AME church and what the Free African Society was about, your theological education is grounded in liberation – it shapes you. I see ministry beyond the walls of the church citing Luke 4:18. That is why I got involved in politics,” says Mr. Proctor. He has served 22 years on the Leon County Commission and comes from a storied generational family of AMEs and Reconstruction leaders in the early 19thcentury.
Ms. Richardson, an attorney for 18 years has witnessed this political and community engagement first-hand, as her father, Bethel’s 33rd pastor, the Right Reverend Adam J. Richardson, Jr. (current Presiding Bishop of the Eleventh Episcopal District of the AME Church) ran for county commission in the 1980s and created the CDC to diminish the housing disparities in Tallahassee along with other programs. When asked why, after having been reared in Bethel under father, she decided to stay, she responded, “Bethel AME is my family; it has been my life and my spiritual foundation, so I stayed.”
Bishop Richardson placed his former church’s involvement in the broader context of political involvement of the 11thEpiscopal District, “All over the Episcopal District our people gave full attention to the election and we were organized for it all over the election and every annual conference and congregations participated in Souls to the Polls and other activities that dealt with voter education and voter mobilization including AME V-Alert. I was invited by Dr. McAllister to come to Bethel for the August 28 Primary Election and it was an extraordinary event. Our daughter was elected, and we are developing a list of the AMEs in the 11th District who were elected. I am really excited about the election. It was an exciting time with an extraordinary turnout. Particularly in Leon County.”
Bethel’s community engagement also extends to sister churches. Bethel AME of Tallahassee drove an hour away from Tallahassee to provide water and a U-Haul truck full of needed supplies to Greater Bethel AME in Panama City, FL after the latter’s church building and surrounding community were hit hard by hurricane Michael, bearing along with them hot meals for its volunteers. Pastor Charletta C. Robinson, who has provided stellar leadership to the Panama City community and Greater Bethel during the devastation, said that we have to remember the Exodus story in all of this.
“Even though the storm has come and gone, we have lived through the storm and now we are in what I call, the wasteland, but we will get through the wasteland and we will enter into the promised land, she said. The generosity from Bethel of Tallahassee was heartfelt, truly.”
Perhaps, the most famous of the candidates in Bethel AME Church, Mayor Gillum spoke of the tremendous impact that faith and other civic organizations like the AME church broadly can play in providing relief and inspiration.
Mayor Andrew Gillum accompanied the trip with the church to aid in providing hope and encouragement to their sister church and Panama City. He and his family have been members of Bethel AME of Tallahassee for eleven years. As the Democratic gubernatorial nominee in Florida, he is heralded as an emblem of the future of the Democratic party — young, black, progressive and, apparently, electorally magnetic. The day before the election, he visited Park Elementary School, which was the first day of school for students in Panama City community post Hurricane Michael. His magnetism extended to the young children as he said during school’s morning announcements, “I am here today because I have been thinking about you as well and I wanted to let you know we are not going to forget you.”
Polls showed him as the favorite over Ron DeSantis, a strongly pro-Trump former Congressman, going into Election Day. However, the Sunshine State delivered another surprise.
(At the time of this publication, the races for Senate and governor in Florida tightened even further on Thursday, November 8, raising the prospect that two of the highest profile contests in the country could be headed to a recount. This recount divided the country’s largest and most volatile battleground state remains along political and demographic lines 18 years after handing George W. Bush the presidency following one of the most controversial recounts in U.S. history.)
Despite the now recount efforts, it was a crushing loss for Mr. Gillum and for the activists and campaign staff, some of whom left full-time jobs to help rally to his causes. It was most especially felt for those at Bethel. Mr. Gillum was the only candidate in the church who did not win on election night. An emotional Gillum concluded his concession speech by saying, “I sincerely regret that I couldn’t bring it home for you, but I can guarantee you this: I am not going anywhere.”
Bethel’s impact is felt on the city, county, judicial and state levels. The church with its history and progressive stewards, as Rev. Dr. McAllister acknowledges, has fostered an incubator for political thought in greater Tallahassee.
As long as America keeps sorting itself into two factions divided by geography, ethnicities, and ideology, pitting multicultural and multiracial teams of progressives who live in cities and inner suburbs against white teams of conservatives who live in exurbs and rural areas, this national divisiveness will continue. We will twist facts into partisan narratives and the wounds will infect more and more of our lives. However, the good news is that churches like Bethel AME of Tallahassee will be there to help heal those wounds by coming together and organizing to promote economic self-sufficiency, moral improvement, political leadership and organization, education, and social welfare of all people – liberal or conservative. No other source of the necessary moral leadership to overcome these divisions is in evidence in contemporary American life.
Therefore, may we all be about such a good work.
Reverend Professor Quardricos Bernard Driskell, federal lobbyist, an adjunct professor of religion and politics at The George Washington University Graduate School of Political Management, and pastor of the historic Beulah Baptist Church in Alexandria, VA. Follow him on Twitter @q_driskell4
