1880  

 

March 11-March 15: 5th Special General Conference Session, Battle Creek, Michigan.

 

October 6-October 12: 19th General Conference Session, Battle Creek, Michigan.

 

Churches: 640

 

T&O: $67,801

 

T&O (76-80):  $290,783

 

Beginning Membership: 14,141

 

End Membership: 15,570

 

 

 

1881              

 

August 6: James White dies.

 

August 22: W.F. Killen reports to the Review and Herald that "The colored man, Edmund Killen, is holding on firmly to the truth. I believe he will do right just as far as he knows. 1 would be glad if he were licensed to preach the truth among those of his race. He is certainly doing a good work among them. I baptized his wife the second Sunday in last June."

 

October 14: Black minister Harry Lowe is granted a ministerial license by the Tennessee Conference.

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December 1-December 19: 20th General Conference Session, Battle Creek, Michigan.

 

Churches: 640

 

Beginning Membership: 15,570

 

End Membership: 16,916

 

 

 

1882  

 

April 3: George Albert King begins colporteur work with sale of first copy of Daniel and Revelation by Uriah Smith.

 

April 11: Healdsburg Academy (later Pacific Union College) opens in Healdsburg, California.

 

April 19, 1882: South Lancaster Academy, forerunner of Atlantic Union College, opens in Lancaster, Massachusetts.

 

December 7-December 19: 21st General Conference Session, Rome, New York.

 

Churches: 660

 

Beginning Membership: 16,916

 

End Membership: 17,169

 

 

 

1883  

 

October 21: John Nevins Andrews dies.

 

November 8: At the GC session J.O. Corliss reported that there were "sixty seven white Sabbath-keepers and twenty colored" in the South Atlantic Mission.

 

November 8-November 20: 22nd General Conference Session, Battle Creek, Michigan.

 

November 26: Sojourner Truth dies.

 

The first black Adventist church is organized in Edgefield Junction, Tennessee, outside of Nashville.

 

Churches: 680

 

Beginning Membership: 17,169

 

End Membership: 17,317

 

 

 

1884                          

 

April: Almira S. Steele founds The Steele Home for Needy Children in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

 

October 30: 23rd General Conference Session, Battle Creek, Michigan.

 

Churches: 705

 

Beginning Membership: 17,317

 

End Membership: 18,702

 

 

 

1885              

 

Summer-Fall: Charles Kinny evangelizes blacks in Topeka, Kansas.

​

November 18-December 6: 24th General Conference Session, Battle Creek, Michigan.

 

Testimonies for the Church, vols. 1-4, by Ellen G. White, are published.

 

Churches: 741

 

T&O: $151,191

 

T&O (1881-85): $561,699

 

Beginning Membership: 18,702

 

End Membership: 20,547

 

 

 

1886  

 

November 9: First congregation of Black Adventists organized at Edgefield Junction, Tennessee.      

 

November 18-December 6: 25th General Conference Session, Battle Creek, Michigan.

 

Churches: 798

 

Beginning Membership: 20,547

 

End Membership: 23,111

 

 

 

1887

 

September 20-September 28: 26th General Conference Session, Oakland, California.

 

Churches: 889

 

Beginning Membership: 23,111

 

End Membership: 25,841

 

 

 

1888

 

June 8: William J. Hardy dies.

 

May 21: Arkansas Conference is organized.

 

October 17-November 8: 27th General Conference Session, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

 

Churches: 901

 

Beginning Membership: 25,841

 

End Membership: 26,112

 

 

 

1889

 

January-June: Charles Kinny wins blacks to Adventist message in St. Louis, Missouri.

 

June 20: Kinny begins his labor among blacks in Louisville, Kentucky. Encounters a “colored company of nine” organized by Alonzo Barry.

 

October 5: Charles Kinny is ordained to the ministry at a camp meeting in Nashville, Tennessee. He is the first black person ordained by the church. The concept of black conferences is first suggested by Charles Kinny when confronted by efforts to segregate him and his members at camp meeting on the day of his ordination. He suggests this as a way to work more effectively among blacks and to help deal with racial tensions and problems in the church.

 

October 18-November 5: 28th General Conference Session, Battle Creek, Michigan.

 

October 19: Jessie Waggoner reports the following at the International Sabbath School Association at the GC session: "In Louisville, Ky. there is a nice little company of colored Sabbath-keepers. One of their little Sabbath- school scholars went out in the country on a visit among Sunday-keepers, and when it came Sabbath he took out his Bible and Lesson Book and began to study his lesson. This caused the people to ask him questions, and the result is several grown people are much interested in the truth."

​

October 25: The Committee on Home Mission took the following action at the GC session: "WHEREAS, There is an apparent need for a book written in an attractive style, profusely illustrated and handsomely bound, for use among the colored people of the South, therefore, "We recommend that the General Conference secure the preparation of such a book at the earliest possible date: and further, we recommend that this book contain as nearly as possible a synopsis of the Bible doctrines especially applicable at this time."

​

November 10: A committee of five are appointed to carry out the recommendation for the preparation of a book for African Americans.

​

“Fundamental Principles” appear in the 1889 SDA Yearbook.

​

Testimonies for the Church, volume 5, by Ellen White, is published.          

​

Alphonso Barry organizes a company of black SDAs in Louisville, Kentucky.

​

Atlantic Conference is organized.

 

SDA colporteur canvases Barbados.

​

James H. Howard accepts Seventh-day Adventist, most likely the first black in Washington, D.C., to do so. An interracial Adventist church is soon organized in the city.

​

Churches: 972

 

Beginning Membership: 26,112

 

End Membership: 28,324

 

 

 

1890  

 

February 16, 1890: The Louisville Seventh-day Adventist church is organized, the second black Seventh-day Adventist church in the world.

 

James Alexander Chiles opens law practice in Lexington, becoming the first black to practice law in the state of Kentucky.

 

Marshall Enoch pioneers Adventist work in Bermuda.

 

T.B. Buckner begins ministerial work the South.

 

Churches: 1,016

 

T&O: $225,434

 

T&O (81-90):  $1,436,016

 

Beginning Membership: 8,324

 

End Membership: 29,711

 

 

 

1891  

 

March 5-March 25: 29th General Conference Session is held in Battle Creek, Michigan.

 

March 6: R.M. Kilgore, superintendent of District No. 2 (comprising nine Southern states), at the General Conference session, makes the following appeal: "I would call the attention of this Conference to the fact that in all the educational work connected with the denomination no provision has been made for the development or workers to labor especially among the colored people. Here is one race of people within our own borders, for whom we as a people, have done very little.

We therefore urge upon this Conference the consideration of this matter, and ask this body to make

some provision for the training of workers from the rank and file of this people, to labor effectually with those of their own race. We repeat, that in no section of the country can there be a more pressing demand, or a louder call for school advantages, than that which comes from this portion of our land." 

 

March 21: Ellen White delivers “Our Duty to the Colored People” address to General Conference contingent.

 

September 21: Bridgetown SDA Church (Barbados) is formed.

 

September 30: Union College in Lincoln, Nebraska, is opened.

 

November 12: Ellen White departs United States for Australia.

 

December 23: Ellen White and entourage arrive in Australia.

 

Beginning Membership: 29,711

 

End Membership: 31,665

 

 

 

1892  

 

February 20: Graysville Academy, forerunner of Southern Adventist University, opened in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

 

June 4: First black church is established in New Orleans, Louisiana, through the efforts of C.M. Kinny.

 

November 1: Ruth Janetta Temple is born in Natchez, Mississippi.

 

Henry S. Shaw is appointed as a special agent by the General Conference to evangelize blacks in the South.

 

James Patterson sets sail for Jamaica, becoming the first black Adventist to be sent from the United States to do missionary work.

 

L.C. Chadwick enters Cape Verde, believed to have been the first SDA to do so.

 

Churches: 1,102

 

Black Membership: c. 50

 

Beginning Membership: 31,665

 

End Membership: 33,778

 

 

 

1893  

 

January 31: John Loughborough speaks of William Foy at length at the General Conference Session held in Battle Creek, Michigan

 

February 17-March 6: 30th General Conference Session, Battle Creek.

 

June 28: Louis Harold Bland is born.

 

August 13: Eva Beatrice Dykes is born.

 

October 22: Thomas Milton Rowe is born.

 

November 9: William Foy dies in Plantation #7, Maine.  He is buried in Birch Tree Cemetery in East Sullivan, Maine

 

C.H. Richards and his wife begin canvassing the Bahamas.

 

Churches: 1,151

 

Beginning Membership: 33,778

 

End Membership: 37,404

 

 

 

1894  

 

January 7: Keene Industrial School, forerunner of Southwestern Adventist University, opens in Keene, Texas.

 

March 10: Construction of Morning Star mission steamer begins.

 

June 15: James L. Moran, future president of Oakwood College, is born.

 

July: Morning Star is launched in Chicago on the Mississippi River.

 

September 15-16: Charles Kinny founds the fifth black SDA church in the world in Nashville, Tennessee.

​

Churches: 1,225

 

Beginning Membership: 37,404

 

End Membership: 42,763

 

 

 

1895

 

February 8: Natelkka Burrell is born.

 

February 15-March 4: 31st General Conference Session is held in Battle Creek, Michigan.

 

August 10: Black SDA church in Vicksburg, Mississippi, is dedicated by General Conference president O.A. Olsen.

 

Summer: Edson White and the Southern Missionary Society proselytize blacks in Memphis, Tennessee.

 

James Edson White opens the first church school for African Americans aboard the Morning Star, in Vicksburg, Mississippi.

 

Solusi Mission is established in Matebeleland, South Africa.          

 

Churches: 1,331

 

Beginning Membership: 42,763

 

End Membership: 47,680

 

 

 

1896

 

January 20: General Conferences purchases property in Huntsville, Alabama, that would be the location of Oakwood.

 

February 20: The General Conference Committee recommends Martha Morrison Osborne to “make Atlanta, Georgia, her field of labor, engaging the work for the colored people.”

 

July 18: Lewis C. Sheafe preaches first sermon as Seventh-day Adventist minister in Battle Creek Tabernacle.

 

November 16: Oakwood Industrial School, forerunner of Oakwood University, opens in Huntsville, Alabama.

 

Churches: 1,439

 

Beginning Membership: 47,680

 

End Membership: 52,202

 

 

 

1897  

 

February 19-March 8: 32nd General Conference Session is held in College View, Nebraska. 

 

March 28: Lewis C. Sheafe is given ministerial credential and assigned to ministerial work in the South by the General Conference Committee.

 

May: Lewis Sheafe does evangelism in Louisville, Kentucky, followed by city mission work in Chattanooga.

 

December: Lewis Sheafe becomes pastor of Lexington, Kentucky, church; engages in extensive evangelism.

 

Churches: 1,574

 

Beginning Membership: 52,202

 

End Membership: 56,426

 

 

 

1898

 

March 28: Juniata Industrial School is opened for African Americans in Sylacauga, Alabama. 

​

May: The Gospel Herald, a periodical on the black work in the South geared toward the evangelization of blacks, is published by Edson White in Yazoo City, Mississippi. Message, its successor, begins in 1934.

 

September: The building of Southern Missionary Chapel (today Lintonia Chapel Seventh-day Adventist Church) in Yazoo City, Mississippi, is completed.

​

Bermuda Institute is established.

 

The Coming King by James Edson White is published.      

 

The Southern Work, a compilation of Ellen G. White's publications on the black work, is published by James Edson White.

 

Churches: 1,654

 

Beginning Membership: 56,426

 

End Membership: 59,347

 

 

 

1899

 

February 15-March 7: 33rd General Conference Session, South Lancaster, Massachusetts.

 

March 4: Lewis C. Sheafe is ordained to the gospel ministry at the GC session in South Lancaster, Massachusetts, with J.N. Loughborough and G.I. Irwin presiding.

 

March-April: “Receive Ye the Holy Ghost” revival led by A.F. Ballenger brings about short-lived merger of black and white Adventist congregations into one church in Louisville, Kentucky.

 

Spring: W.G. Buckner and T.S. Buckner open a church school for impoverished black children called “Charity Mission” in Montgomery, Alabama.

​

Ballenger describes Washington, D.C. church (membership approximately 150 – 100 white, 50 black)  “a living miracle” for its harmonious fellowship.

​

Churches: 1,785

 

T&O (91-1900): $3,680,164

 

Beginning Membership: 59,347

 

End Membership: 64,003