Introduction
Born: February 24, 1811, Charleston, South Carolina.
Died: November 2, 1893.
Buried: Laurel Cemetery (defunct), Baltimore, Maryland.
Born: February 24, 1811, Charleston, South Carolina.
Died: November 2, 1893.
Buried: Laurel Cemetery (defunct), Baltimore, Maryland.
In 1852, Payne became the sixth bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) denomination.
In 1856, he joined the founding board of directors of Wilberforce University in Ohio, the first historically black college in which African Americans were part of the founding. After the start of the American civil war, Payne became its president, the first African-American college president in the United States.
After the war, Payne was instrumental in organizing and expanding the AME church. Within two decades, the church had grown to a quarter million members.