As the new historiographer for the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the Rev. Mark Kelly Tyler, pastor of the denomination’s founding church, hopes to preserve and expand knowledge of its history.
Rev. Mark Kelly Tyler, senior pastor of Mother Bethel AME Church with wife, First Lady Leslie Tyler
Photo courtesy Rev. Mark Tyler
By Denise Clay-Murray
As someone who has done this many times, I can tell you that whenever you sit down to talk with the Rev. Mark Kelly Tyler, pastor of the historic Mother Bethel AME Church in South Philadelphia, you’re going to learn a little bit of history.
For example, when we talked earlier this week about his election as the AME Church’s new historiographer/director of research and scholarship, the conversation included some history connecting the AME Church and the various fights against colonialism on the African continent.
“I was talking to one of our pastors in Zambia, and so I said, ‘Hey, one of your bishops told me this story about how the AME Church during the fight against the colonial powers, was used as a safe haven for the revolutionaries,’” Tyler recalled. “And he said, ‘Oh, I pastor that church now. It’s in Lusaka.’ He said they had tunnels built from the church to the state house. So, they go and fight the whites, and then they get in the tunnels and run back to the AME Church. And the AME Church would keep them safe and give them solace. A Zambian Underground Railroad! Are you kidding?!”
“People in every generation and every place have taken the story of Richard Allen and Sarah Allen and their resistance against white supremacy in St George’s Methodist Church on 4th and New Street, and they’ve appropriated it in their own way,” Tyler continued. “In South Africa, many of [Nelson] Mandela’s, top lieutenants were AME preachers.”
As historiographer, Tyler’s mission is to share the history of the AME Church and how it has expanded to five continents and 39 countries. He was elected to the position during the denomination’s annual General Conference last month and becomes the 15th person to serve in this role.
He is a graduate of Clark Atlanta University and holds a master’s degree in Divinity from Payne Theological Seminary in Wilberforce, Ohio, and a doctorate in Educational Leadership from the University of Dayton.
The SUN spoke with Rev. Tyler about his love of history, his new position, how he hopes to use it to bring forth more of the history of a religious denomination that has played a large role in social justice movements, and where Philadelphia fits into all of that.
Rev. Mark Tyler and First Lady Leslie Tyler at the tomb of Bishop Richard Allen, Mother Bethel AME Church’s founder as they celebrated the recent Founder’s Day including guests Bishop Julius McAllister Sr. and Dr. Amber Wiley from the University of Pennsylvania. They had a fireside chat about historic preservation of important civil rights sites.
Photo Mother Bethel AME Church
SUN: Thanks for giving us some of your time, Mark. First of all, congratulations on being elected Historiographer. What led you to history as an interest?
MT: My mother got me interested in history. In Africa, they talk about the role of the griot and how there’s always somebody in the tribe or the community that’s the keeper of the history and the story. In my family, my mom is certainly one of those persons, and so even now at 90 years old, she can tell you these stories. She was born in 1933, so the people who raised her in Arkansas were all from the 1800s and they carried all this institutional information and memory. I would always just, kind of sit at her feet and listen. She would tell me the same stories over and over, but the stories never got old. I just always enjoyed hearing them.
Once I entered the actual AME ministry, I did begin to notice that a lot of the sermons I preached were always framed in some aspect of history. It just comes out naturally, and it’s just a part of what I do and a part of who I am.
SUN: Being the keeper of the history for the AME church has got to be a big responsibility. What made you decide to run for this position?
MT: The AME Church, as you probably can kind of tell by the way that we lift up Mother Bethel, is one of those Black churches that puts a high price on our history, and value it to a great degree. Which is why they’re paying me now to be the person responsible for stewarding that story, trying to find ways to deepen the story, to bring new stories out, to find creative ways to share those stories, and form new partnerships. I think a lot of people who voted for me did so because they’d seen the five documentaries that I’ve already done for the AME Church [and had hope that I would build upon that.] Right now, I’m already thinking, how can I get in front of PBS and get a PBS series done on the AME?
I want to excite people and let them know that the history of AME Church is not just Mother Bethel, as important as that story is, but that there are stories literally all around the world that are worth telling now.
SUN: One of the last stories that the SUN did about Mother Bethel was a story on the replacement of the stained-glass windows after an act of vandalism. There was a lot that went into that because of the historic nature of the building. Preserving places like Mother Bethel is important. Will that be a part of what you do as the keeper of the church’s history?
MT: Yes. One of the things that I have really become somewhat proficient in through what I call on-the-job training, is the preservation of historic Black church buildings. Of the seven churches that I pastored, five of those were the first Black church in their city or community. Three of those five had historic buildings where the church had been there for over 100 years or so or had been on that land for that long. So, there was a lot of attachment to property. The idea of just picking up and moving was not always an option, because when you’re the first Black church in the city, there’s all this history that goes with it. So you have to learn how to access the tools of preservation and understand the language and how you go about preserving historic buildings. You can’t just get any painter to come and paint, or you can’t just get any carpet person or flooring person or plumber. All of these things have to be done by persons who have a specialty in dealing with old historic buildings. You never know what you’re going to find.
So, what I want to do is bring those folks to the foreground and use things like Zoom to have seminars, and have people come on to talk about their successes. There are also grant opportunities out there, so I’d like to have those people come on to talk to us and, at some point, try and pull ourselves together and see if we can get some grants that are exclusive for our denomination or Black Methodists in general.
There is a rich history of Black Methodism. When Dr [Martin Luther] King couldn’t preach in Baptist churches in the South, he often turned to Black Methodist churches, because our structure was one where the local white supremacists could not easily shut the church down.
They couldn’t put pressure on the AME bishop like they could the Baptist deacons who hired their pastor. The AME people could say, “Look, it’s not us. Our bishop told our pastor to do it, and so there was a different kind of leverage.’ A lot of our churches have always been used, from the Underground Railroad up until the Civil Rights Movement, in some very unique ways. I think that we have a particular story.
So, we want to make sure that on the preservation side, we do everything we can.
SUN: Now, I understand that because you’ve been elected to this office, which is one of the church’s general offices, that you have to step down as pastor of Mother Bethel. Do you know when you’ll be preaching your final sermon there?
MT: Right now, it’s shaping up to be the first Sunday in November, which is subject to change, but right now I say that looks like that’s going to be the last day.
SUN: In addition to your work as pastor at Mother Bethel, you’ve been involved in Philadelphia’s activist community. From your work with POWER Interfaith to helping to select the Citizens Police Advisory Commission to representing Pennsylvania as a delegate to the recent Democratic National Convention, you’re someone that people look to when it comes to civic life here in the city.
Will you still be able to be active in the city with your new position?
MT: I hope that I can continue with some of the work I’ve been doing in Philly in some way. You know, we’ve got an election coming up, so I’m very much a part of an effort that we created with POWER called Black Faith Votes. And I’ll be running that campaign through the end of the election. And beyond that, we’ll be certainly having some conversations. My predecessor, just so you know, is a full-time faculty member at the Candler Seminary at Emory University, and her predecessor was also a full-time faculty member at Vanderbilt. So, there is a precedent that the historiographer will also be otherwise involved in something else, as opposed to just being simply the historiographer. I have not necessarily worked all those details out yet, but I would say, for me, more than likely, what that other thing will be is the type of work that I’ve been doing with POWER, either locally in Philly or nationally.
SUN: Well, thank you so much for your time, Rev. Tyler, and again, congratulations on your election.
MT: Thank you.
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