Eastside History Series: Denmark Vesey and the African Church

On the corner of Hanover and Reid Streets once stood an institution called the African Church. The building first opened its doors in 1818, after hundreds of black Methodists resigned from existing churches and formed a new congregation in protest over white attempts to control them.  Morris Brown, whose memory lives on in Charleston through the African Methodist Episcopal church that now bears his name, was one of the founders.

In 1822, a number of members of the Hampstead church were arrested for plotting to seize arms and kill slaveholders, including Denmark Vesey, a former slave who had won enough money in a lottery to purchase his freedom. In the trial that followed, the words “he belongs to the African Church” were repeated over and over. Vesey and thirty-four other men were executed and the church was burned to the ground.

Until recently, the only public outdoor memorial to Denmark Vesey was a small sculpture by Ronald Jones, situated in a niche outside Emanuel AME Church, just steps away from the room in which nine worshippers were murdered on June 17, 2015. Installed in 1991 as part of a Spoleto exhibit called Places with a Past, it depicts the heads of four children, a reference to Vesey’s poignant remark that he had organized the rebellion in hopes that his children might go free.  

After years of effort on the part of many advocates, including Trident Technical College history instructor Donald West, Denmark Vesey was honored in 2014 with a statue in Hampton Park.  

In recent years, several historical markers have been erected on the East Side, drawing public attention to the fact that the neighborhood includes sites of national historic importance. Yet there is no marker on the site of the African Church, now just a few steps away from Laundry Matters, a project of the community nonprofit organization Loving America Street. I hope that someday Denmark Vesey’s church will be remembered with a marker of its own.    

Further Reading: 

• For more on Ronald Jones’s sculpture
• For more on the statue of DenmarkVesey in Hampton Park.