It also continues to encourage churches and individuals to send in any historic documents and records they might have.
The “center” — the name is “deceiving,” Stith said, because it doesn’t have a physical location people can visit — found a home within the General Commission on Archives and History at Drew University in Madison, New Jersey.
For 12 years, until 2008, the AAMHC received funding from the denomination’s global decision-making body, the General Conference. Since then, Travis and AAMHC board members have fundraised for the organization — that is, until the COVID-19 pandemic put a stop to travel and in-person meetings.
Mollie Stewart, current president of the board of directors, began reaching out to foundations across the denomination for funding.
In 2021, the Holston Foundation, a United Methodist organization that supports individuals and organizations that “do the work of Christ,” sent a $100,000 gift. Later that year, the denomination’s General Commission on Archives and History also reached into its reserves to contribute about $30,000 a year for five years.
It was a “shot in the arm,” Stewart said.
“That was the second affirmation that God intends for it to stay alive. It is not quite healthy yet, but it’s moving in that direction,” she added.
It’s been a financial stretch for the commission, according to Ashley Boggan D., general secretary of the General Commission on Archives and History.
But, Boggan said, “We can’t afford to lose the voice and this center. At a time when the Methodist Church is calling out racism and is trying to find and form and shape new ways of doing anti-racist work, to have this center go under because of lack of financial support would have just been absurd and tragic.”
The AAMHC’s collection is important because it “completes the narrative,” she said.
So often the narrative that’s preserved — both inside and outside the church — is the white narrative. Those who are remembered as the church’s greatest leaders historically are white and male, according to the general secretary.
“Centers, such as the African American Methodist Heritage Center, work to round out that narrative and nuance it by intentionally disrupting it and saying, ‘No, this isn’t the case. There have been a lot of prominent persons who have not been male and who have not been white, and here are their stories, and here are different perspectives on the same events that white males have written about,’” she said.
She added: “Without it, our story would be skewed.”
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This article originally appeared on ReligionNews.com.
