Becoming AME & “Lincoln Church”
In 1865, the year the Civil War ended and Congress abolished slavery, St. Paul changed its affiliation to African American Episcopalian (AME), a denomination founded in 1787 and organized in 1816 by Reverend Richard Allen.
The 1865 South Carolina Conference of the AME Church transferred Rev. George W. Brodie from Canada to lead St. Paul. The church contained Raleigh's existing Black leaders and nurtured emerging leaders for the community of newly freed people.
Referenced in newspapers of the time as “the African Church,” St. Paul also gained the nickname of “Lincoln Church” because of its noted celebration in honor of the fallen president, Abraham Lincoln.
Skilled carpenters in St. Paul’s congregation continued to renovate the old wooden structure previously used by Christ Church. A contemporary travel correspondent in 1865 described the St. Paul sanctuary interior that seated 300 people and featured a large plaster bust of President Abraham Lincoln. The August 5, 1865 New York Times noted: “On Thursday the 3rd instance, a copy of Jones’s celebrated bust was inaugurated with solemn ceremonies by the loyal freedmen and women of this place at the African M.E. Church.” For many years locals continued to all St. Paul the “Lincoln Church.” It is within the improved wooden structure that the first North Carolina Freedmen’s Convention was held, opened by a noted Union Army Master Spy, on September 29, 1865. Some of the city’s first Emancipation Day Parades began with a processional from the grounds of St. Paul.