Reverend Henry M. Turner
(1834–1915)

Henry McNeal Turner, an important African American leader of the late nineteenth century, is best remembered as a bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME). Turner was first licensed to preach in the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1860, and he served as a minister to congregations in Baltimore, Maryland and Washington, D.C. In 1863, Turner raised the first black regiment of the Civil War and served as its chaplain. President Johnson then appointed him the first Chaplain of the United States Army.

Turner was born on a farm near Newberry, South Carolina to free parents Howard and Sarah Turner. He learned to read as a child and furthered his education by reading in the library of a medical college where he worked.

Between 1867 and 1871, Turned helped organize the Republican Party in Georgia and also served on the state legislature. In addition, Turner organized AME Churches all over the state of Georgia. He was elected a Bishop in 1880.

In reaction to the treatment of African Americans in the United States, Turner became an advocate of black migration. He felt that African Americans would have a better life if they immigrated to Haiti, the New Mexico Territory, or Africa.

Bishop Turner died on May 9, 1915, while attending an AME gathering in Windsor, Canada.

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