Tanner Chapel AME Church- Phoenix, AZ

On December 28, 2023January 19, 2024 By The State Library of ArizonaIn Arizona Legislature, History, Law / Statutes

Before Arizona became a state in 1912, many people were settling in the territory from around the country and establishing communities that would bring people together for generations. One example of this community building was the establishment of Tanner Chapel AME Church (originally the African Methodist Episcopal Mission) in 1887. The oldest African American church in Phoenix, the church still serves the community today with programs designed to help those in need and build relationships among those surrounding the church.

As described in the book “Indiscernibles in Arizona: On the Hope and Reality of Being Black in Arizona”, Shirley Johnson mentions “My local church members have become my second family” (p.g 32). The importance of churches in the African American community, specifically the Tanner Chapel, is seen in their involvement in creating a church network in Phoenix throughout early statehood, helping with the growth of the African American community in Arizona, supporting the Civil Rights movement, and the establishment of Martin Luther King Jr Day, and continuing to provide services for the community.

Early Phoenix Churches

The African Methodist Episcopal Mission Church was settled by African American settlers fleeing the post-Reconstruction South and seeking new opportunities in the West. It was founded by Sister Bell and Reverend H. H. Hawkins in 1887 and built a church on 2nd Street and E. Jefferson in 1899 when it was renamed Tanner Chapel A.M.E. Church after Bishop Benjamin T. Tanner. In 1929, the church moved to its permanent location at 8th Street and E. Jefferson (Arizona Memory Project).

1932 Phoenix City and Salt River Valley Directory

Shortly after Tanner Chapel AME’s establishment in 1889, other churches such as the Second Colored Baptists Church, the Colored Methodists Episcopal Church, and the African Methodist Episcopal Church were founded in the same area (Minorities in Phoenix, 1994). These churches served a growing population of African Americans from 26 in Arizona in 1870 to 43,000 in 1950. Like other parts of the country, “…. The civil rights movement, with its explosive issues of fair employment, public accommodations and other humane concerns dealing with the socio-economic status of Blacks and other minorities” were coming to Arizona (Black Heritage, 1976, p.8).

Civil Rights

*Arizona State House of Representatives in Phoenix 1963-1964*

On June 3rd, 1964, Martin Luther King Jr. visited Arizona to speak at Arizona State University to a group of 8,000 about the civil rights bill and the importance of containing nonviolence in ending segregation. Before speaking at the Goodwin Stadium at ASU, he took time in the morning to give a short sermon at Tanner Chapel AME Church, the only church to receive a sermon during his visit. Two years later in 1966, Cloves C. Campbell Sr, another member of Tanner Chapel AME Church, was elected to the House of Representatives and was the first African American to be elected in Arizona. He served two terms and sponsored bills to provide students with bilingual education, increase cultural diversity in textbooks, and create South Mountain and Gateway Community Colleges. Furthermore, he introduced a bill to establish a Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 1971 after Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination in 1968, years before the federal government passed the holiday bill in 1983. Although it did not pass in Arizona, it did establish the idea for future bills to come.

*1973-1974, Journal of the House of Representatives, State of Arizona, Thirty-First Legislature, 1st Special Session* *(page 207 of PDF, 209 of Journal)*

Another member of the Tanner Chapel AME Church, Representative Arthur “Art” M. Hamilton, also supported the establishment of Martin Luther King Jr Day. The Representative served for 26 years in the Arizona House of Representatives on a platform of crime reduction and better education for children starting in 1971. He was the first and only Arizonian to be elected President of the National Council of State Legislatures and he participated in education promotion such as the Black Town Hall conference on “Blacks in Education” in 1988. Hamilton furthered the work of Cloves Campbell Sr and fought for the passage of Martin Luther King Jr. Day in Arizona, even before the Super Bowl threatened to pull the event if the holiday was not passed in 1993. Through the difficulties of the passage of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, including adding and taking away other holidays in exchange for the holiday, Hamilton worked with his fellow legislators on both sides of the House as well as the public to help get it passed in 1992, the last state in the United States to do so. (If you want to hear about the passage of MLK Day, you can listen to an oral history by Art Hamilton here).

Services Today

*Arizona Republic, 2011-02-16, from microfilm*

Currently, the Tanner Chapel AME Church is under the leadership of Reverend Dr. Benjamin N. Thomas, Sr. who in 2001 founded a nonprofit organization called the Tanner Community Development Corporation (TCDC) to, “…provide assistance to the physically challenged, the aged and sick, needy children, families, and the homeless. The TCDC also sponsors various programs for health and housing, literacy, education, financial, and employment opportunities. Tanner Chapel A.M.E. Church continues to strive to bridge the gap between church and community” (BlackPast, 2014). The church still holds weekly services and provides 60-plus ministries and programs for the community. In addition, the church was the 14^th building to be put on the Phoenix Historic Property Register building in 2010 due to its involvement in fighting for civil rights and Arizona politics (Arizona Republic, 2011).

Resources:

Art Hamilton on Establishing Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday

Black Community Publications

Black Heritage in Arizona – First Families

Black History in Arizona

Black Legislators Serving Arizona – The Shining S.T.A.R.L.

Contributions of Black Women in the Arizona Legislature – The Shining S.T.A.R.L.

Indiscernibles in Arizona | Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing

Tanner Chapel A.M.E. Church

Tanner Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church (1887- )- (blackpast.org)

Minorities in Phoenix (baker-taylor.com)

Arizona Author Series and Genealogy Day

On December 13, 2023 By The State Library of ArizonaIn Events, Reading Arizona, Webinars

It is the end of the year, which means a time to reflect on the past year and to look forward to the new year. We are looking back at some past events and looking forward to some upcoming events! Every year we host our Arizona Author Series and Genealogy Day. Both are wonderful events that allow us to reach a wider audience inside and outside of Arizona, and really showcase our collections.

*Thomas Sheridan, discussing his book at an Arizona Author Series event in 2017.*

The Arizona Author series returns in January and will be celebrating its eighth year as an event! This event began as an effort to highlight authors, historians, and scholars who were writing about topics and themes featuring Arizona. Specifically, it was meant to highlight how they were using our materials in their research to complete their writings. It started with author Thomas Sheridan, PhD, discussing his book Arizona: A History in January of 2017 and was an in-person event here at the Polly Rosenbaum State Archives and History building. The series would continue to be a staple in our yearly program and was held right outside our Reading Room until the pandemic in 2020.

Images clockwise from upper left: Author Bernard Wilson in 2018, Author H. Alan Day in 2018, Author Laura Tohe in 2018.

The series has been a wonderful way for us to highlight our resources and how authors use them in their research, but also to promote books about Arizona. Since the pandemic, the event has remained virtual and has focused on books written about Arizona rather than the research process used to write those books, but it has also allowed us to include more authors and reach a wider audience. Since its inaugural event, we have hosted forty authors, twenty-one in-person events, seventeen virtual events, and one recorded event at the Arizona Capitol Museum, and have covered topics on historical events and people, the significance of art and films in Arizona, plants, land agreements, different cultures, and more. This year we will host another five authors speaking on a range of topics: the black experience, internment camps in Arizona, the connection to Arabia, the Santa Cruz River, and the Grand Canyon.

If you want to check out any of the books featured in any of the author series, past or present, check out Reading Arizona, our free platform for eBooks and audiobooks! There is a featured list of Author Series authors found here Featured Lists.

The new year marks the Fourth Annual Genealogy Day, on Saturday, February 24^th. This program is a wonderful way for the public to connect and learn from the Genealogy community and learn what resources we have here, at the Polly Rosenbaum State Archives and History Building. The program was born out of our partnership with FamilySearch, and our relationship with the Arizona Genealogical Advisory Board (AzGAB).

Within the first year of the FamilySearch scanning partnership in late 2018 and early 2019, our staff were introduced to other scanning locations in the valley. We were able to strengthen our relationship with the AzGAB leadership. In late 2020, a member of AzGAB had the brilliant idea of partnering with the Arizona State Library, Archives and Public Records to host a daylong, virtual event centered around genealogy. Planning meetings began in 2020 and the rest is history, as they say.

Throughout the years, Arizona Genealogy Day has contracted with a variety of experts who have spoken on topics such as how to use Sanborn maps, census records, and city directories, researching your home, how divorce and even murder can be found in census reports, and so much more! Select recordings from previous events are available on the State of Arizona Research Library YouTube channel. We are very excited in 2024 to have speakers discussing finding your family through livestock branding, historical newspapers, navigating African American slave histories, creating a family narrative, and mapping your plans and results.

Turkey Talk

On October 30, 2023 By The State Library of ArizonaIn Fun, Law / Statutes

*From Tales of Lonely Trails, Illustration pacing page 213*

As Thanksgiving approaches, many of us are beginning to think about what we are going to make for our family and friends, and that usually includes a turkey. While many of us buy our turkeys at the store, this was not always the case and many settlers and pioneers in Arizona relied on wild turkeys as a source of food and other resources.

In the biographical book Tales of Lonely Trails, author Zane Grey describes hunting turkeys frequently, including his successes and failures, and how that affected his expeditions throughout Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and California. To get an idea of how valued turkey was, Grey describes a discussion between him and a companion: “When I would hail him: ” George, what you got to eat?” he would grin and reply: ”‘Aw, turkee!’ Then I would let out a yell, for I never in my life tasted anything so good as the roast wild turkey Takahashi served us.” (Grey, p. 281). While our methods of getting food are different today, it is interesting to see how life for pioneers was so different from ours and how our predecessors before us survived day-to-day.

Arizona is home to three subspecies of Turkeys including Merriam’s, Gould’s, and (recently imported) Rio Grande turkeys, and they have been considered big game animals since 1913. From the beginning of our statehood, hunting of turkeys has been regulated. You can find the details of the first turkey permits in the “Session laws, State of Arizona, 1913, First Legislature, 3rd Special Session” which state,

Sec.· 1. No person shall at any time shoot, or take in any manner, any game which is by law protected in this State without first having in his possession a hunting license… A big game license shall entitle the person therein named to hunt game quadrupeds during the open season thereof. (Wild turkeys are classified as big game under the meaning of this Act.)
Session laws, State of Arizona, 1913, First Legislature, 3rd Special Session, page 20 (PDF page 116)

When turkeys were added to the list of big game animals in 1913, you could bag up to three turkeys. This was reduced to two in 1929 and eventually limited to just the fall season after World War II due to the monitoring of declining populations in Arizona.

*Photo of Merriam’s turkey, Hunt Arizona 1997, p. 40 (PDF page 42)*

After their creation in 1929, the Arizona Game and Fish Department was responsible for handing out hunting permits, as well as monitoring and measuring animal populations in the wild. According to the publication Hunt Arizona 2017, wild turkeys in Arizona can be found in the, “…ponderosa pine forests but also in riparian deciduous forests and other vegetation types of elevations ranging from 3,500 to 10,000 feet” (p. 88). In addition, wild turkey populations were very robust in the 1960s but began to decline, and by 2017, populations were 15,000 to 20,000 in the wild, causing Fall and Spring hunting to be permit-only. Those restrictions have been further limited in 2023, and permits are only for a brief time in the spring and fall seasons with reduced limits to one turkey, thus keeping turkey populations healthy.

*Wild turkey habitats, Arizona hunting regulations 2022-2023,* *p. 38*

Furthermore, the Wildlife News January 2012 edition states, “The Arizona Game and Fish Commission is composed of five members (serving staggered five-year terms) appointed by the Governor and confirmed by the Arizona Senate… [and]…Since its inception in 1929, this organizational structure has served as a buffer for the best interests of science-driven wildlife conservation during eight decades of back-and-forth political change” (p. 4). Arizona has had a long history of protecting and preserving natural resources since we became a state in 1912 and will continue to do so in the future. Appreciation of wildlife from our pioneer days has been passed down, and the current protection and management of the wild turkey populations in Arizona is just one example.

This Thanksgiving, remember how our predecessors lived and relied on what was around them. But also remember what our state does to help keep those traditions around for generations after us. You can also learn more about the Arizona Game and Fish Department on the Arizona Memory Project and read more from the sources below!