The American Missionary Association (AMA) was a nondenominational Christian organization dedicated to achieving full political and social equality for African Americans. The AMA’s members were motivated by their belief that the teachings of Jesus Christ promoted racial harmony.
The AMA was incorporated in 1846 by Lewis Tappan, one of the founders of the American Anti-Slavery Society, and Simeon Jocelyn. Tappan and Jocelyn, along with most of the other early members of the AMA, had been active in the Amistad slave case that had secured the freedom of a number of illegally imported slaves. At first, the AMA focused on establishing overseas missions for freed slaves. By the 1850s, however, the AMA had turned primarily to abolition. For the next decade, AMA members supported a number of abolitionist causes, most prominently the Underground Railroad.
During the Civil War, the AMA began working to educate former slaves. Over 500 schools were founded during the Civil War and in the decades thereafter. Most were elementary schools, but a number of institutions of higher learning were also established, including Atlanta University, Fisk University, Hampton Institute, Howard University, Huston-Tillotson College, and Talladega College. The AMA remains in operation to the present day and has continued to focus on education and other assistance for the underprivileged, including African Americans, Native Americans, Mexican Americans, Chinese immigrants, and Appalachian people.
See also religion.
Further reading: Joe M. Richardson, Christian Reconstruction: The American Missionary Association and Southern Blacks, 1861-1890 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1986).
—Mark Groen
World History
