Sunday, February 17, 2002

Holly Grove A.M.E. celebrates Black History Month

By CAROLYN CARY
ccary@TheCitizenNews.com

Members and guests of the Holly Grove African Methodist Episcopal Church participated in its Black History Month celebration recently.

History of the AME church was explored and it was learned that the sect was organized in 1816. It developed from a congregation formed by a group of Philadelphia-area slaves and former slaves who withdrew from St. George's Methodist Episcopal Church because of discrimination.

The church that was built is now known as Mother Bethel and had as its first ordained minister one Richard Allen. He was ordained by Bishop Francis Asbury of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1799 and in 1816, he was consecrated as bishop by Asbury.

After the Civil War, the church spread rapidly in the South and currently has about 1.2 million members.

Holly Grove was begun in what is now Peachtree City in the last of the 1890s and is enjoying its 105^th year.

The celebration included a plaque to Gerri Holt, who has given much of her time to the church and has donated a display in the Family Center depicting the black history of Fayette County as well as recognizing historic black figures in the past.

One of the historic figures was Martin R. Delany, who was born a slave in Virginia in 1812. His father purchased John's freedom and he then attended the Bethel Church School in Pittsburgh. A doctor in town employed him as an assistant. He attended Harvard Medical School from 1849 to 1852. During the Civil War he recruited soldiers for the Union Army. He was the first African-American to receive a regular army commission, that of major. He died in Ohio in 1885.

Speaker for the occasion was Sam Matchett. Reared on a farm in Valdosta, he was the seventh of 11 children. While attending Lowndes County High School, he became the first African-American to play on the school tennis team.

He later graduated from Morehouse College with a BA
degree in history, graduating magna cum laude. He obtained his law degree from the University of Georgia School of Law in 1984 and is currently a partner in the King and Spalding law firm.

He related that there is nothing more precious than freedom and one way it can be obtained is by education.

"A good education provides options," he said, "and options allow you to choose whatever path you wish to pursue. If we give our children a good education, God will take care of the rest."

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