Payne, Daniel Alexander

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Payne, Daniel Alexander

February 24, 1811
November 2, 1893

Daniel Alexander Payne was the principal figure in the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church during the second half of the nineteenth century, a period one historian termed "the era of Bishop Daniel Payne." Payne was born in Charleston, South Carolina, to free black parents who provided for his early education. He established his own school in 1828 but was forced to close it when the South Carolina legislature prohibited the teaching of blacks.

Leaving Charleston in 1835, he studied for two years at the Evangelical Lutheran Seminary in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, but left because of failing eyesight. He obtained a license to preach and in 1839 became the first African-American clergyman ordained by the Franckean Evangelical Lutheran Synod. He opened a coeducational school in Philadelphia in 1840 and soon became involved in the antislavery movement.

Although Payne briefly served a white Presbyterian congregation in Troy, New York, he was never given charge of a Lutheran parish, so in 1841 he associated with the AME Church. He hesitated to join the denomination because many members opposed an educated clergy. Payne's preference for formal, liturgical worship and learned ministers contrasted with the emotional, spontaneous style of many of the denomination's pastors and congregations. But his untiring efforts to standardize AME worship, improve religious education, and preserve a record of the denomination's history eventually earned the respect of church leaders. Elected a bishop in 1852, he shaped the character and policies of the denomination over the next four decades. Under his leadership, the AME Church expanded its home and foreign missions, reorganized its publication program, and established hundreds of congregations among the recently emancipated slaves, a major factor in the denomination's rapid growth after the Civil War.

A noted educator, author, and theologian, Payne was named president in 1863 of Wilberforce University, the first black-controlled college in the United States. He made the institution solvent, attracted capable students and faculty, and enhanced its reputation. Although he left the presidency of Wilberforce in 1876, he remained active in its administration until his death.

Payne wrote numerous poems, essays, speeches, and sermons for the African-American press. His autobiographical Recollections of Seventy Years (1888) and History of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (1891) are important contributions to African-American literature and valuable sources for nineteenth-century African-American history. He was a conspicuous figure in the World Parliament of Religions at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago (1893).