12

Conference in Greensboro, showed the remarkable figures of 8,hll members and probationers, 53 local preachers, and 52 churches valued at $19,850.00.27 Parallel to the overall growth of the Methodist Episcopal Church

in North Carolina was the growing strength of Negro membership in the state. In January, l867, Dr. Mitchell reported that about half of the members and probationers were colored.28 During the I870 annual confer— ence Session, two Negro preachers were received on trial and three charges were to be supplied by Negro preachers.29 In l87l the Rev. w. G. Matton of the North Carolina Conference expressed the joy felt by Negroes in the Methodist Episcopal Church in North Carolina:

. . . nothing is so cheering to the faithful toiler,

who has been locked out of churches and school-houses,

or allowed to occupy merely on suffrance, as to stand

in SEE own pulpits, in 32: own churches, and to see

penitents at 23: own altars. By l876 about two—thirds of the ministers in the conference were

Negroes. Furthermore, the clerical delegate to the General Conference

was a Negro of Greensboro, Matthew Alston, one of the persons responsi-

ble for the beginning of Bennett College.31 In 1880, the North Carolina

27Ibid. 281bid.

29“North Carolina Conference," Christian Advocate, January-20, l870, p. 2l.

30Church Extension Society, 23' cit., p. 520

3‘lGeneral Conference, M.E.C., Journal, 1876,ppr8, 33]; also see S, G. Atkins, 1'History and Status of Education Among the Colored People,“ Special chapter in Charles Lee Smith, The History of Education

in North Carolina (washington, D. C.: Government Printing Office, 1888), p. 159J"‘