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Vernon African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church is located at 311 North Greenwood Avenue in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Vernon is the only remaining edifice from the worst race massacre in American history in 1921 and the only black-owned structure from the Historic Black Wall Street era. It is also the oldest continuously-operating church in Oklahoma.

Vernon AME started in a one-room house located at 549 North Detroit Street in 1905 when African Methodism first arrived in Tulsa, which was then part of Indian Territory. Reverend J. E. Roy was the first pastor, followed by Reverend R. A. Devers in 1906. By that point worshippers met at Gurley Hall at 114 North Greenwood Avenue. The congregation grew from 8 to 16 members soon after and they moved to Barksdale Hall on East Archer. The congregation began its first building project at Hartford and Archer streets during Rev. Devers one-year tenure. The building project resulted in the construction of a small frame house which was completed under Reverend G. H. Burton and renamed Burton Chapel by the 71-member congregation in 1907.

The present site of Vernon was purchased in 1908 for the sum of $290.00, with a down payment of $100.00 made by the trustees. Voting to change the church’s name from Burton Chapel to Vernon AME Church in honor of Registrar of the Treasury, W. T. Vernon, who was appointed by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1906. Additional land was purchased and by 1914 the old church structure was torn down and a new brick basement for a new church was constructed. However, the Tulsa Race Massacre on June 1, 1921 left black-owned homes, schools, and businesses destroyed and the new Vernon brick basement in ruins.

Vernon AME rapidly rebuilt after the Massacre. Immediately after the destruction of Greenwood Avenue and Black Wall Street, the Vernon congregation began growing a building fund of $1,100.00 to rebuild the structure. During that time, its membership doubled from 200 congregants to 400 congregants.

The rapid rebirth of Vernon became an iconic monument to the devastated community and gave a sense of normalcy after the tragic event. The church opened its doors to Tulsa’s Booker T. Washington high school students while their facility was being rebuilt. Vernon also became the site of various community events.

The main church building was finally completed in 1928. By 1940, the membership had grown to over 800 and a neon welcome sign was erected as a beacon of hope. One of the most notable pastors of Vernon was Reverend Ben H. Hill, who had an extensive experience in church and educational work. Hill took a group of youth from the church to the famous March on Washington in 1963 and under his leadership the Church took on many other notable projects.

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in August 2018, Vernon remains a visual reminder of the reconstruction process after the Tulsa Massacre, a landmark and symbol of persistence.

Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church established 1864 was the first African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E. church) in the state of Mississippi. It was also the site for T.W. Stringer Grand Lodge of Freemasonry for the State of Mississippi headquartered in Vicksburg and founded by Rev. T.W. Stringer in 1867. The church is located at 805 Monroe Street in Vicksburg, Mississippi, at the corner of Monroe and First East streets. While the building that houses the church was built in 1828, a demolition took place in 1912 to build the present building. The most famous of the church’s early pastors was Rev. Hiram Revels who on February 25, 1870 took the oath of office to become the first Black U.S. Senator in the history of the United States. He was also the first president of Alcorn University.

Bethel AME Church was first organized and founded by Rev. Page Tyler, a missionary from Missouri. As the congregation grew, in 1868 the current church property was purchased at a cost of $28,000 from a white Presbyterian congregation that had built the church building on this site in 1828.

At one point in 1912 as the new building was being constructed, the congregation, then led by Rev. W.L. Anderson, met in a small chapel in the rear of a three-story hall on the campus of Campbell College. At that point the congregation numbered 550 parishioners.

Over time the congregation decreased due in part to the passing of its members. Nonetheless, the church community exhibited a strong desire to ensure the history of the church is preserved and continued to be shared. To that end, the city of Vicksburg and the state of Mississippi supported the successful effort to add the church to the National Register of Historic Places. On July 30, 1992 Bethel AME Church was added to the Register.

The Bethel AME congregation is currently led by Pastor Arnita Spencer who continues to share the message of God’s love and services to the community as well as the church’s historical legacy. Besides Senator Revels, prominent church members have included Isaiah Thornton Montgomery, the only African American member of the Mississippi Constitutional Convention of 1890, also the founder of the town of the all-Black town of Mound Bayou in 1887 and Campbell College in 1890, John Lynch, the first African American Congressman from Mississippi, L.J. Bowman, Alcorn State University President, and William H. Jefferson, co-founder with his wife, of Jefferson Funeral Home, Mississippi’s oldest-black owned business and oldest registered black funeral home in the state. Lucy C. Jefferson, William Jefferson’s wife, was a prominent civic organizer who invited Booker T. Washington to come to the state. She also organized the Mississippi Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs.

In the 1960s, about 100 Shona missionaries arrived in Kenya from Zimbabwe and Zambia to establish the Gospel of God Church. The move was accepted and welcomed by Kenya’s first president, Jomo Kenyatta, but his successors have not done much to integrate the Shona.

The descendants of these missionaries are stateless in Kenya. Despite living and being born in the country, they are not recognized by the law and have been demonstrating in recent weeks to end decades of statelessness.

Most of the missionaries settled in the Kiambu area just on the outskirts of the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. Under the first post-independence constitution, people who are not of Kenyan descent cannot be registered as citizens.

Due to this, about 5,000 Shona people living in Kenya have been rendered stateless because of this outdated law and it is affecting their daily lives.

Nationality laws in most African states operate on the concept of jus soli, or ‘rights to soil’ and jus sanguinis, or ‘right of blood.’ With the jus soli concept, a person can obtain citizenship if they are born in a specific country while with jus sanguinis, a person gains citizenship by virtue of the origin of their parents.

The issue now is, countries that base their citizenship laws on ‘rights to soil’ hinder people who are away from their ‘historic’ homeland rights to citizenship of their ‘new’ country, and unfortunately, they are also denied nationality of their new country of residence because of laws based on ‘right of blood,” according to a report by DW.

Thus, the Shona, without proper recognition, are stateless, meaning, they cannot hold Kenyan citizenship or identify as Kenyan nationals. Their ties in Zimbabwe or Zambia have been severed as well, hence, they cannot identify with those countries as well.

In international law, a stateless person is someone who is “not considered as a national by any state under the operation of its law.”

“They are in limbo because they are not protected by the citizenship of their new country and at the same time they are not protected by their country of origin because they are no longer citizens,” Cristiano d’Orsi, a research fellow and lecturer in Refugee and Migration Law at the University of Johannesburg told DW.

The Shona in Kenya do not have access to identity cards, passports or driver’s license and are hindered from accessing good jobs because they cannot be employed formally. Subject to informal streams of income, they cannot also open bank accounts or buy houses. They sometimes cannot get legally married or even travel abroad.

Mike Moyo, a carpenter in nearby Kiambu County, has 10 children and 7 grandchildren who were all born in Kenya but are stateless and do not have birth certificates or identity cards. Moyo’s eldest son laments on the dreadful effect of their statelessness.

“We can’t enjoy services that nationals enjoy. We don’t have mobile banking and going to the hospital is also a challenge.

“Birth certificate are needed for class 8 registration for our children who are in primary school so sometimes we are forced to ‘buy’ parents so that our children can continue with education. We cannot even save money.”

In recent weeks, some hundreds of Shona people have been going on peaceful marches in the streets of Kenya to draw the attention of the government to their statelessness; they simply want to be recognized.

Although they have fully integrated with the Kenyan way of life, they will not truly belong unless they are recognized formally as citizens.

Members of the Kenyan Shona community have presented a petition to the Kiambu county calling for recognition. The Assembly’s speaker, Stephen Ndichu, told VOA that it’s now up to the government to process the petition as they have handed it over for fast track processing.

There have been efforts by the Kenyan government to resolve the statelessness of the Shona people and in August 2019, 600 citizenships were offered to some of them although there is more work to be done. Some 2,000 people have applied for birth certificates recently and they are yet to be processed.

According to a UNHCR report, there are about 19,000 stateless people in Kenya and approximately 12 million in the world of which 715,000 are in Africa. Statelessness is seen as a major problem in Africa, however, there are ongoing works to tackle the issue across the continent by individual governments and the African Union.