B” is for Brown, Morris (1770-1849)

“B” is for Brown, Morris (1770-1849). Clergyman. Brown, a free mulatto, was born in Charleston. He became a licensed Methodist preacher and organized an African congregation in Charleston in the early 1810s. After White church officials reduced the control that Black Methodists had heretofore exercised over their church affairs, Brown led most of them from the denomination in 1817 in protest. They formed an African church. His Charleston church which had grown to more than three thousand members, affiliated with the African Methodist Episcopal Church, a northern Black denomination. After the Denmark Vesey plot in 1822, there were accusations that Brown and his congregation were part of the conspiracy. Fearing implication, he fled to Philadelphia and his church in Charleston was closed. In 1828 Morris Brown was elected as the second Bishop of the growing African Methodist Episcopal Church.