Untitled (Report from the South Carolina Conference)
Christian Recorder: May 4, 1867
The African Methodist Episcopal Church is growing more than any other church in the world. I do not boast but I have traveled sixteen thousand miles in the last few months and roamed over one half of Georgia. I have been brought in contact with all parts of the South and have lectured and reached to them. It is generally known when I am coming, there is a general expectation of people. I preach to them to the best of my ability and then tell them that I am a minister of a free negro church with negro bishops, negro deacons, and negro members. I have now twenty-seven preachers in my district and consider that fifty more could be employed. Moreover we have men down there who could do honor to any people. Brother Carr is here, but he is only one of the brilliant stars which adore the South. There are some of the most graphic speakers down there that anyone has ever heard. I heard Mr. William Wells Brown speak at Douglass Institute on last night and he said someone would have to go down there and polish them, but I will tell the people here in Washington city that they will have to do more than what they have been doing (we have had a great many difficulties there) but unless the people here do more than they have been doing they will have to make an attempt to catch up with all the people of the South.
