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African American Missionary Women
African-American women have played a significant role in the history of Christian missions. In the 18th and early 19th centuries, many African-American women were involved in missionary work both in the United States and abroad. This article page includes some introduction and insight on some notable female missionaries from these time periods.These women faced many challenges and obstacles in their missionary work, including racism, discrimination, and limited resources. Despite these challenges, they were able to make significant contributions to the field of Christian missions and to the broader African-American community. Much of the work that women contributed to Christian movements and missions left a huge mark in American history.

Prominent African American Female Missionaries
Amanda Berry Smith, was a Methodist missionary who dedicated her life to the Methodist church. She accomplished a lot regarding her missionary work, including preaching around the world in places such as India, and Western parts of Europe. She even spent eight years working in Liberia. In 1899 she founded an orphanage for African American children in Harvey, Illinois. Betsey Stockton was an African American missionary in the early 1800's who made history as the first single woman to embark on an international mission. Stockton also studied at Princeton University before dedicating her time to missionary work. Jarena Lee, was the first woman preacher at the African Methodist Episcopal Church and she worked tirelessly her entire life in her missionary work across the nation. Another prominent female missionary was Susan Angeline Collins. Collins dedicated her life's work to Methodist missionary work and participated in multiple missions to Africa. Collins was college educated and an involved member of her community. She founded a boarding school for girls and focused on empowering the women in her community and pushing their stories forward.

Christianity and African American Women
"The first Black Protestant denomination, the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, was founded in the early 1800s by Richard Allen, who had bought his freedom from slavery."

African American women have played an integral role in the spread of Christianity. "Scholars say predominantly Black churches of the 19th and 20th centuries played important roles in Black society outside the sphere of religion. In a period when discrimination barred Black people from access to various public amenities, many Black churches offered job-training programs, insurance cooperatives, circulating libraries and athletic clubs.30 They were among the only places Black people could take public or semi-public leadership positions."

Missionaries in the 1700s interacted with and converted populations of enslaved people. These early African American Christians were often forbidden by slave masters from attending church or prayer meetings, so they held services in secret. The enslaved African American Christians developed styles of singing and prayer which were distinct from the white Christian practices. Large numbers of conversions did not begin to occur until after 1760. Missionaries in the 17th century promoted the belief that enslaved Christians were obligated to serve their white masters, but this narrative changed following the Great Awakenings of the 19th and 20th century, in which "preachers held that all were equal before God."

The years between 1880 and 1920 were a crucial period in the development of African American Christianity.

"During these years, the church served as the most effective vehicle by which men and women alike, pushed down by racism and poverty, regrouped and rallied against emotional and physical defeat." Participating in religious gatherings, many found as an enriching and valuable way to not only spend their time but also bring positivity and of course faith to people in their communities. "Black southern women communicated regularly with broad communities of northern women, since their letters and reports were printed monthly in Tidings and Home Mission Echo. Their letters conveyed racial pride and intimate thoughts as they documented the organizational achievements of black Baptists, related themes heard in a black minister’s sermon, mourned the death of a black leader, or told of their own separate religious and teachers’ conferences and other events of interest in black communities.68 At other times, the letters of black women served as painful reminders of raw injustice and inhumanity."

African American women found a safe space within each other in their religious communities, and the way they developed a sort of sisterhood amongst each other really played a huge role in their journey towards gender equality within the church. "In drawing upon the Bible—the most respected source within their community— they found scriptural precedents for expanding women’s rights. Black women expressed their discontent with popular conceptions regarding “woman’s place” in the church and society at large. They challenged the silent helpmate image of women’s church work and set out to convince the men that women were equally obliged to advance not only their race and denomination, but themselves. Thus the black Baptist women developed a theology inclusive of equal gender participation. They articulated this viewpoint before groups of men and women in churches, convention anniversaries, and denominational schools, and in newspapers and other forms of literature."