A Will to Choose traces the history of African-American Methodism beginning with their emergence in the fledgling American Methodist movement in the 1760s. Responding to Methodism's anti-slavery stance, African-Americans joined the new movement in large numbers and by the end of the eighteenth century, had made up the largest minority in the Methodist church, filling positions of authority as class leaders, exhorters, and preachers. Through the first half of the nineteenth century, African Americans used the resources of the church in their struggle for liberation from slavery and racism in the secular culture.
Surveys the first century of African American Methodism from its emergence in the 1860s through the changes wrought by the Civil War. From the beginning of Methodism in the United States, African Americans appropriated Methodism, helped transform it from a revitalization movement into an evangelical church.
