The Mississippi Enterprise

Encyclopedia of
Negro Church
To Be Out Soon

Bishop R. R. Wright, Jr. in the
closing session of the 32nd General
Conference of the A. M. E. Church
announced that the first volume
of The Encyclopeadia of the Negro
Church, which deals with "African
Methodism" will go to Press sometime in June. The Bishop stated
that the book would contain more
than 1,500 biographics of leaders
of the church from 1760 to date,
over 1,000 articles of general interest on the history, doctrines,
polity of the church, with 100 articles on African and the Negro,
beside pictures of over 2,500 men
and women leaders in the church.
It will contain a resume of the
general conferences of the A. M. E.,
A. M. E. Z., and Methodist general
conferences just closed in Philadelphia, Detroit, and Kansas City;
and the names of every Negro
elected a bishop of any church
since Richard Allen was elected
first bishop of the A. M. E. Church,
in 1816.
"The Encyclopeadia," said Bishop Wright to the vast audience,
"will be the largest biographical
and ecclesiastical dictionary ever
compiled by Negroes in modern
times. It is not alone my work,
but I have had the assistance of
forty leading scholars of the race.
The printer tells me that the book
will weigh twelve pounds, and the
paper alone used in the first edition
will cost over $4,000."
Bishop and Mrs. Wright left Tuesday for Wilberforce, Ohio where
the Encyclopeadic is being compiled.