African Academy, the first permanent school in

Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...

for African Americans. It was located at 112–116 Sharp Street, between Lombard and Pratt. There was an initial attempt to operate the African Academy beginning in 1797, when a group of black Methodists received support from the Maryland Society for the Abolition of Slavery, specifically involving

Elisha Tyson Elisha Tyson (December 18, 1750February 16, 1824) was an American colonial millionaire and philanthropist who was active in the abolition movement, Underground Railroad, and African colonization movement. He helped black people escape slavery by e ...

and his brother Jesse Tyson. The school and meetinghouse was opened on what is now Saratoga Street (previously Fish Street), but after a few months they were forced to leave the building due to insufficient funds. The meetinghouse congregation was affiliated with the Lovely Lane Meeting House until 1802. Having acquired sufficient funds, the African Methodist Episcopal Church and the African Academy were established on Sharp Street in 1802 by the Colored Methodist Society, at which time the congregation separated from the Lovely Lane Meeting House.

Daniel Coker Daniel Coker (1780–1846), born Isaac Wright, was an African American of mixed race from Baltimore, Maryland; after he gained freedom from slavery, he became a Methodist minister. He wrote one of the few pamphlets published in the South that prote ...

, who was the school headmaster until 1817, established the Bethel Charity School in 1807. It was sponsored by the Colored Methodist Society. Children from Baltimore and Washington, D.C. attended the school. In 1817, Coker became the pastor of the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church on Saratoga Street, east of Holliday Street, and operated the school at that location. By the 1820s, there were 150 students in attendance. Daniel Coker, a founder of the

African Methodist Episcopal Church The African Methodist Episcopal Church, usually called the AME Church or AME, is a predominantly African American Methodist denomination. It adheres to Wesleyan-Arminian theology and has a connexional polity. The African Methodist Episcopal ...

, was also the lead teacher of the congregation until 1817. In 1860, a new church was built on the same site. A Gothic style church, named the Sharp Street Memorial United Methodist Church and Community House, was built on Dolphin and Etting Streets in 1898.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:African Academy Educational institutions established in 1797 Private schools in Baltimore 1797 establishments in Maryland African-American history in Baltimore