Profiles in African-American Chaplaincy

Credit: https://www.loc.gov/item/2009630222/

Henry McNeal Turner

Chaplain, United States Army

Born: 1834, Newberry, South Carolina

Died: 1915, Windsor, Ontario, Canada

Field of chaplaincy: military

In late 1863, Turner organized one of the first Black regiments of the Union Army during the Civil War and he became chaplain for the regiment.
After the war, President Johnson and the African Methodist Episcopal Church Bishop, Daniel Payne, appointed Turner as chaplain of Freedman’s Bureau in Georgia.
Turner helped organize the Republican Party in Georgia and was elected to the state legislature in 1886.
Turner believed that the Black church could provide important leadership for Black Americans and devoted his time to the AME, where he was elected as the 12th Bishop in 1880.

Citations:

Turner, H. M., Cole, J. L. (2013). Freedom’s Witness: The Civil War Correspondence of Henry McNeal Turner. United States: West Virginia University Press https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/brandeis-ebooks/reader.action?docID=3417035

Redkey, E. (1967). Bishop Turner’s African Dream. The Journal of American History, 54(2), 271-290. doi:10.2307/1894806. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1894806?refreqid=excelsior%3A129e27880cc8bba8082222eaf37ee071&seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents

Ponton, Mungo Melanchthon. Life and Times of Henry M. Turner; the Antecedent and Preliminary History of the Life and Times of Bishop H. M. Turner, His Boyhood, Education and Public Career, and His Relation to His Associates, Colleagues and Contemporaries. New York: Negro Universities Press, 1970. https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/010311057.