The African Methodist Episcopal Church, usually called the AME Church or AME, is a Methodist Black church. It adheres to Wesleyan-Arminian theology and has a connexional polity. The African Methodist Episcopal Church is the first independent Protestant denomination to be founded by black people; though it welcomes and has members of all ethnicities.

The AME Church was founded by Richard Allen (1760–1831) in 1816 when he called together five African American congregations of the previously established Methodist Episcopal Church with the hope of escaping the discrimination that was commonplace in society, including churches. It was among the first denominations in the United States to be founded for this reason (rather than for theological distinctions).

AME has persistently advocated for the civil and human rights of African Americans through social improvement, religious autonomy, and political engagement while always being open to people of all racial backgrounds. Allen, a previously ordained deacon in the Methodist Episcopal Church, was elected by the gathered ministers and ordained as its first bishop in 1816 by the first General Conference of the five churches—extending from the three in the Philadelphia area in Pennsylvania to ones in Delaware and Baltimore, Maryland. The denomination then expanded west and through the South, particularly after the American Civil War (1861–1865). By 1906, the AME had a membership of about half a million, more than the combined  predominantly black American denominations—the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church in America and the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, making it the largest major African-American denomination of the Methodist traditions.

The AME Church currently has 20 districts, each with its own bishop: 13 are based in the United States, mostly in the South, while seven are based in Africa. The global membership of the AME is around 2.5 million members, and it remains one of the largest Methodist denominations in the world.

Church name
African The AME Church was created and organized by people of African descent (most descended from enslaved Africans taken to the Americas) as a response to being officially discriminated against by white congregants in the Methodist church. The church was not founded in Africa, nor is it exclusively for people of African descent. It is open and welcoming to people of all ethnic groups, origins, nationalities, and colors, although its congregations are predominantly made up of black Americans.
Methodist The church's roots are in the Methodist church. Members of St. George's Methodist Church left the congregation when faced with racial discrimination, but continued with the Methodist doctrine and the order of worship.
Episcopal The AME Church operates under an episcopal form of church government. The denomination leaders are bishops of the church.

Motto

"God Our Father, Christ Our Redeemer, the Holy Spirit Our Comforter, Humankind Our Family"

Derived from Bishop Daniel Alexander Payne's original motto "God our Father, Christ our Redeemer, Man our Brother", which served as the AME Church motto until the 2008 General Conference, when the current motto was officially adopted.

History

Origins
The AME Church worked out of the Free African Society (FAS), which Richard Allen, Absalom Jones, and other free blacks established in Philadelphia in 1787. They left St. George's Methodist Episcopal Church because of discrimination. Although Allen and Jones were both accepted as preachers, they were limited to black congregations. In addition, the blacks were made to sit in a separate gallery built in the church when their portion of the congregation increased. These former members of St. George's made plans to transform their mutual aid society into an African congregation. Although the group was originally non-denominational, eventually members wanted to affiliate with existing denominations.

Allen led a small group who resolved to remain Methodist. They formed the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1793. In general, they adopted the doctrines and form of government of the Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1794 Bethel AME was dedicated with Allen as pastor. To establish Bethel's independence, Allen successfully sued in the Pennsylvania courts in 1807 and 1815 for the right of his congregation to exist as an institution independent of white Methodist congregations.

Because black Methodists in other middle Atlantic communities also encountered racism and desired religious autonomy, Allen called them to meet in Philadelphia in 1816 to form a new Wesleyan denomination. Sixteen representatives, from Bethel African Church in Philadelphia and African churches in Baltimore, MD, Wilmington, DE, Attleboro, PA, and Salem, NJ, met to form a church organization or connection under the title of the "African Methodist Episcopal Church" (AME Church).

Growth
It began with eight clergy and five churches, and by 1846 had grown to 176 clergy, 296 churches, and 17,375 members. Safe Villages like the Village of Lima, Pennsylvania, were setup with nearby AME churches and in sometimes involved in the underground railroad. The 20,000 members in 1856 were located primarily in the North. AME national membership (including probationers and preachers) jumped from 70,000 in 1866 to 207,000 in 1876.

The church also expanded internationally during this period. The British Overseas Territory of Bermuda, 640 miles from Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, was settled in 1609 by the Virginia Company and retained close links with Virginia and the Carolinas (with Charleston settled from Bermuda in 1670 under William Sayle) for the next two centuries, with Bermudians playing both sides during the American War of Independence, being the point from which the blockade of southern Atlantic ports was maintained and the Chesapeake Campaign was launched during the American War of 1812, and being the primary port through which European-manufactured weapons and supplies were smuggled into the Confederacy during the American Civil War. Other Bermudians, such as First Sergeant Robert John Simmons of the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment, fought to end slavery in the United States. Among the numerous residents of the American South with ties to Bermuda was Denmark Vesey, who had immigrated to South Carolina from Bermuda as a slave before purchasing his freedom. Vesey was a founder of Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church before his execution after conviction in a show trial resulting from white hysteria over an alleged conspiracy for a slave revolt in 1822.

The majority of the population of Bermuda during the first century of settlement was European, with free and enslaved blacks primarily from the Spanish West Indies and Native Americans, primarily from New England (anyone not entirely of European ancestry was counted as coloured). As any child of a coloured and a white parent was counted as coloured, the ratio of the white to coloured population shifted during the course of the 18th Century (4,850 whites and 3,514 coloured in 1721; but 4,755 whites and 5,425 coloured in 1811). The Church of England is the established church, and was the only church originally permitted to operate in Bermuda. Presbyterians were permitted to have a separate church and to conduct their own services during the 18th Century. The Wesleyan Methodists sought to include enslaved blacks and a law was passed by the Parliament of Bermuda in 1800 barring any but Church of England and Presbyterian ministers from preaching. The Methodist Reverend John Stephenson was incarcerated in December, 1800, for six months for preaching to slaves. The law and attitudes changed during the course of the following century, but any church organised by blacks and organising blacks would not be welcomed by the white dominated Government. Stephenson was followed in 1808 by the Reverend Joshua Marsden. There were 136 members of the Society when Marsden left Bermuda in 1812.

Susette Harriet Lloyd travelled to Bermuda in company with the Church of England's Archdeacon of Bermuda Aubrey Spencer. Her visit lasted two years, and her ''Sketches of Bermuda'' (a collection of letters she had written en route to, and during her stay in, Bermuda, and dedicated to Archdeacon Spencer) was published in 1835, immediately following the 1834 abolition of slavery in Bermuda and the remainder of the British Empire (Bermuda elected to end slavery immediately, becoming the first colony to do so, though all other British colonies except for Antigua availed themselves of an allowance made by the Imperial government enabling them to phase slavery out gradually). Lloyd's book gives a rare contemporary account of Bermudian society immediately prior to the abolition of slavery. Among her many observations of the people of Bermuda, Lloyd noted of the coloured population:

Lloyd's negative comments on the dissenters was in reference to the Wesleyan Methodists. The degree of education of coloured Bermudians would  be noted by later visitors, also. Christiana Rounds wrote in Harper's Magazine (re-published in an advertising pamphlet by A.L Mellen, the Proprietor of the Hamilton Hotel in 1876):

The foundation stone of a Wesleyan Methodist Chapel was laid in St. George's Town on the 8 June 1840, the local Society (by then numbering 37 class leaders, 489 Members, and 20 other communicants) having previously occupied a small, increasingly decrepit building that had been damaged beyond use in a storm in 1839. The inscription on the foundation stone included:

The AME First District website records that in the autumn of 1869, three farsighted Christian men—Benjamin Burchall of St. George's, William B. Jennings of Devonshire and Charles Roach Ratteray of Somerset—set in motion the wheels that brought African Methodism to Bermuda. By the latter Nineteenth Century, the law in Bermuda specified that any denomination permitted to operate in the United Kingdom should also be permitted in the colony (although only the Church of England, the Presbyterian Church, and the Wesleyan Methodists were permitted to conduct baptisms, weddings and funerals until after the First World War). As the Imperial Government had ruled that the AME Church could operate in the United Kingdom, the first AME church in Bermuda was erected in 1885 in Hamilton Parish, on the shore of Harrington Sound, and titled St. John African Methodist Episcopal Church (the congregation had begun previously as part of the British Methodist Episcopal Church of Canada). Although the Church of England (since 1978, titled the Anglican Church of Bermuda) remains the largest denomination in Bermuda (15.8%), the AME quickly flourished (accounting for 8.6% of the population today), overtaking the Wesleyan Methodists (2.7% today).

The rise of the Wesleyan-Holiness movement in Methodism influenced the African Methodist Episcopal Church, with Jarena Lee and Amanda Smith preaching the doctrine of entire sanctification throughout pulpits of the connexion.

Education
AME put a high premium on education. In the 19th century, the AME Church of Ohio collaborated with the Methodist Episcopal Church, a predominantly white denomination, in sponsoring the second independent historically black college (HBCU), Wilberforce University in Ohio. By 1880, AME operated over 2,000 schools, chiefly in the South, with 155,000 students. For school houses they used church buildings; the ministers and their wives were the teachers; the congregations raised the money to keep schools operating at a time the segregated public schools were starved of funds.

Bishop Turner
After the Civil War Bishop Henry McNeal Turner (1834–1915) was a major leader of the AME and played a role in Republican Party politics. In 1863 during the Civil War, Turner was appointed as the first black chaplain in the United States Colored Troops.  Afterward, he was appointed to the Freedmen's Bureau in Georgia. He settled in Macon, Georgia, and was elected to the state legislature in 1868 during Reconstruction. He planted many AME churches in Georgia after the war.

In 1880 he was elected as the first southern bishop of the AME Church after a fierce battle within the denomination. Angered by the Democrats' regaining power and instituting Jim Crow laws in the late nineteenth century South, Turner was the leader of black nationalism and proposed emigration of blacks to Africa.

Race
The African Methodist Episcopal Church has a unique history as it is the first major religious denomination in the western world that developed because of race rather than theological differences. It was the first African-American denomination organized and incorporated in the United States. The church was born in protest against racial discrimination and slavery. This was in keeping with the Methodist Church's philosophy, whose founder John Wesley had once called the slave-trade "that execrable sum of all villainies." In the 19th century, the AME Church of Ohio collaborated with the Methodist Episcopal Church, a predominantly white denomination, in sponsoring the second independent historically black college (HBCU), Wilberforce University in Ohio. Among Wilberforce University's early founders was Salmon P. Chase, then-governor of Ohio and the future Secretary of Treasury under President Abraham Lincoln.

Other members of the FAS wanted to affiliate with the Episcopal Church and followed Absalom Jones in doing that. In 1792, they founded the African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas, the first Episcopal church in the United States with a founding black congregation. In 1804, Jones was ordained as the first black priest in the Episcopal Church.

While the AME is doctrinally Methodist, clergy, scholars, and lay persons have written works that demonstrate the distinctive racial theology and praxis that have come to define this Wesleyan body. In an address to the 1893 World's Parliament of Religions, Bishop Benjamin W. Arnett reminded the audience of blacks' influence in the formation of Christianity. Bishop Benjamin T. Tanner wrote in 1895 in The Color of Solomon – What? that biblical scholars wrongly portrayed the son of David as a white man. In the post-civil rights era, theologians James Cone, Cecil W. Cone, and Jacqueline Grant, who came from the AME tradition, criticized Euro-centric Christianity and African-American churches for their shortcomings in resolving the plight of those oppressed by racism, sexism, and economic disadvantage.

Beliefs

The AME motto, "God Our Father, Christ Our Redeemer, Holy Spirit Our Comforter, Humankind Our Family", reflects the basic beliefs of the African Methodist Episcopal Church.

The basic foundations of the beliefs of the church can be summarized in the Apostles' Creed, and The Twenty Five Articles of Religion, held in common with other Methodist Episcopal congregations. The church also observes the official bylaws of the AME Church. The "Doctrine and Discipline of the African Methodist Episcopal Church" is revised at every General Conference and published every four years. The AME church also follows the rule that a minister of the denomination must retire at age 75, with bishops, more specifically, being required to retire upon the General Conference nearest their 75th birthday.

Church mission

The Mission of the African Methodist Episcopal Church is to minister to the social, spiritual, physical development of all people. At every level of the Connection and in every local church, the African Methodist Episcopal Church shall engage in carrying out the spirit of the original Free African Society, out of which the AME Church evolved: that is, to seek out and save the lost, and serve the needy. It is also the duty of the Church to continue to encourage all members to become involved in all aspects of church training.  The ultimate purposes are: (1) make available God's biblical principles, (2) spread Christ's liberating gospel, and (3) provide continuing programs which will enhance the entire social development of all people.  In order to meet the needs at every level of the Connection and in every local church, the AME Church shall implement strategies to train all members in: (1) Christian discipleship, (2) Christian leadership, (3) current teaching methods and materials, (4) the history and significance of the AME Church, (5) God's biblical principles, and (6) social development to which all should be applied to daily living.
 preaching the gospel,
 feeding the hungry,
 clothing the naked,
 housing the homeless,
 cheering the fallen,
 providing jobs for the jobless,
 administering to the needs of those in prisons, hospitals, nursing homes, asylums and mental institutions, senior citizens' homes; caring for the sick, the shut-in, the mentally and socially disturbed,
 encouraging thrift and economic advancement., and
 bringing people back into church.

Colleges, seminaries and universities
The African Methodist Episcopal Church has been one of the forerunners of education within the African-American community.

Former colleges & universities of the AME Church:
 Western University (Kansas)
 Campbell College, Jackson, Mississippi – now part of Jackson State University

Senior colleges within the United States:
 Allen University (Columbia, SC) Website
 Edward Waters College (Jacksonville, FL) Website
 Morris Brown College (Atlanta, GA) Website
 Paul Quinn College (Dallas, TX) Website
 Wilberforce University (Wilberforce, OH) Website

Junior colleges within the United States:
 Shorter College (North Little Rock, AR)  Website

Theological seminaries within the United States:
 Dickerson-Green Theological Seminary Website
 Jackson Theological Seminary Website
 Payne Theological Seminary Website
 Turner Theological Seminary Website

Foreign colleges and universities:
 African Methodist Episcopal University, Liberia
 RR Wright Theological Seminary, South Africa

Structure

The General Conference

The General Conference is the supreme body of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. It is composed of the bishops, as ex officio presidents, according to the rank of election, and an equal number of ministerial and lay delegates, elected by each of the Annual Conferences and the lay Electoral Colleges of the Annual Conferences. Other ex officio members are: the General Officers, College Presidents, Deans of Theological Seminaries; Chaplains in the Regular Armed Forces of the U.S.A. The General Conference meets every four years, but may have extra sessions in certain emergencies.

At the General Conference of the AME Church, notable and renowned speakers have been invited to address the clergy and laity of the congregation. Such as in 2008, the church invited then Senator Barack H. Obama, and in 2012, the church invited then First Lady of the United States Michelle Obama.

Council of Bishops

The Council of Bishops is the Executive Branch of the Connectional Church. It has the general oversight of the Church during the interim between General Conferences. The Council of Bishops shall meet annually at such time and place as the majority of the Council shall determine and also at such other times as may be deemed necessary in the discharging its responsibility as the Executive Branch of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. The Council of Bishops shall hold at least two public sessions at each annual meeting. At the first, complaints and petitions against a bishop shall be heard, at the second, the decisions of the Council shall be made public. All decisions shall be in writing.

Board of Incorporators

The Board of Incorporators, also known as the General Board of Trustees, has the supervision, in trust, of all connectional property of the Church and is vested with authority to act in behalf of the Connectional Church wherever necessary.

The General Board

The General Board is in many respects the administrative body and comprises various departmental Commissions made up of the respective Treasurer/CFO, the Secretary/CIO of the AME Church, the Treasurer/CFO and the members of the various Commissions and one bishop as presiding officer with the other bishops associating.

Judicial Council

The Judicial Council is the highest judicatory body of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. It is an appellate court, elected by the General Conference and is amenable to it.

AME Connectional Health Commission

The Connectional Health Commission serves, among other tasks, to help the denomination understand health as an integral part of the faith of the Christian Church, to seek to make our denomination a healing faith community, and to promote the health concerns of its members. One of the initiatives of the commission is the establishment of an interactive website that will allow not only health directors, but the AMEC membership at-large to access health information, complete reports, request assistance. This website serves as a resource for members of the AMEC, and will be the same for anyone who accesses the website. Additionally, as this will be an interactive site, it will allow health directors to enter a password protected chat room to discuss immediate needs and coordinate efforts for relief regionally, nationally and globally.

It is through this website that efforts to distribute information about resources and public health updates, and requests for services may be coordinated nationally. This will allow those who access the website to use one central location for all resource information needs.

Overview

The World Council of Churches estimates the membership of the AME Church at around 2,510,000; 3,817 pastors, 21 bishops and 7,000 congregations.

The AME Church is a member of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA (NCC), World Methodist Council, Churches Uniting in Christ, and the World Council of Churches.

The AME Church is not related to either the Union American Methodist Episcopal Church (which was founded in Delaware by Peter Spencer in 1813), or the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church (which was founded in New York by James Varick). However, all three are within full communion with each other since May 2012.

Districts
The AME Church is divided into 20 districts, spanning North America and Bermuda, the Caribbean, sub-Saharan Africa and parts of South America:
 First District – Bermuda, Delaware, New England, New Jersey, New York, Western New York, and Philadelphia
 Second District – Baltimore, Washington, D.C., Virginia, North Carolina and Western North Carolina
 Third District – Ohio, Pittsburgh, North Ohio, South Ohio and West Virginia
 Fourth District – Indiana, Chicago, Illinois, Michigan, Canada and a mission extension in India
 Fifth District – California, Southern California, Desert Mountain, Midwest, Missouri, and Pacific Northwest
 Sixth District – Georgia, Southwest Georgia, Atlanta-North, Macon, South Georgia and Augusta
 Seventh District – Palmetto, South Carolina, Columbia, Piedmont, Northeast South Carolina and Central South Carolina
 Eighth District – South Mississippi, North Mississippi, Central North Louisiana, and Louisiana
 Ninth District – Alabama River Region, Southeast Alabama, Northeast Alabama, Southwest Alabama, Northwest Alabama
 Tenth District – Texas, Southwest Texas, North Texas and Northwest Texas
 Eleventh District – Florida, Central, South, West Coast, East, Bahamas
 Twelfth District – Oklahoma, Arkansas, East Arkansas, and West Arkansas
 Thirteenth District – Tennessee, East Tennessee, West Tennessee, Kentucky and West Kentucky
 Fourteenth District – Liberia, Central Liberia, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Nigeria, Côte d'Ivoire and Togo-Benin
 Fifteenth District – Angola, Cape, Boland, Eastern Cape, Kalahari, Namibia, and Queenstown
 Sixteenth District – Guyana/Suriname, Virgin Islands, European, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, Windward Islands and Brazil
 Seventeenth District – Southeast Zambia, Southwest Zambia, Northeast Zambia, Northwest Zambia, Zambezi, Congo Brazzaville, Katanga, Kananga, Kinshasa, Mbuji-mayi, Rwanda, Burundi and Tshikapa
 Eighteenth District – Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, and Eswatini
 Nineteenth District – Orangia, Natal, M.M. Mokone Memorial Conference, East, West
 Twentieth District – Malawi North, Malawi South, Malawi Central, Northeast Zimbabwe, Southwest Zimbabwe, Central Zimbabwe

Bishops (past and present)

The Four Horsemen: important bishops

Current bishops and assignments
 1st Episcopal District – Bishop Julius Harrison McAllister
 2nd Episcopal District – Bishop James Levert Davis
 3rd Episcopal District – Bishop Erreneous Earl McCloud, Jr.
 4th Episcopal District – Bishop John Franklin White
 5th Episcopal District – Bishop Clement W. Fugh
 6th Episcopal District – Bishop Reginald T. Jackson
 7th Episcopal District – Bishop Samuel Lawrence Green Sr.
 8th Episcopal District – Bishop Stafford J. N. Wicker
 9th Episcopal District – Bishop Harry Lee Seawright
 10th Episcopal District – Bishop Adam Jefferson Richardson, Jr., Senior Bishop
 11th Episcopal District – Bishop Frank Madison Reid, III
 12th Episcopal District – Bishop Michael Leon Mitchell
 13th Episcopal District – Bishop E. Anne Henning Byfield
 14th Episcopal District – Bishop Paul J. M. Kawimbe
 15th Episcopal District – Bishop Silvester Scott Beaman
 16th Episcopal District – Bishop Marvin C. Zanders, II
 17th Episcopal District – Bishop David Rwhynica Daniels, Jr.
 18th Episcopal District – Bishop Francine A. Brookins
 19th Episcopal District – Bishop Ronnie Elijah Brailsford
 20th Episcopal District – Bishop Frederick A. Wright
 The Office of Ecumenical Affairs – Bishop Jeffery Nathaniel Leath

Retired bishops
 John Hurst Adams*
 Richard Allen Hildebrand*
 Frederick Hilborn Talbot*
 Hamil Hartford Brookins*
 Vinton Randolph Anderson*
 Frederick Calhoun James
 Frank Curtis Cummings
 Philip Robert Cousin, Sr
 Harold Benjamin Senatle*
 Robert Thomas, Jr.*
 Henry Allen Belin, Jr.
 Richard Allen Chappelle, Sr*
 Vernon Randolph Byrd, Sr. *
 Robert Vaughn Webster
 Zedekiah Lazett Grady*
 Carolyn Tyler Guidry
 Cornal Garnett Henning, Sr.*
 Sarah Frances Davis*
 John Richard Bryant
 William P. Deveaux*
 T. Larry Kirkland
 Benjamin F. Lee
 Richard Franklin Norris, Sr.*
 Preston Warren Williams, II
 McKinley Young*

* Deceased

General officers
 Marcus T. Henderson Sr., Treasurer/Chief Financial Officer
 John Green, Secretary-Treasurer, Global Witness and Missions
 James F. Miller, Executive Director, Department of Retirement Services
 Marcellus Norris, Executive Director of Church Growth and Development
 Jeffery B. Cooper, General Secretary/CIO
 Teresa Fry Brown, Executive Director, Research and Scholarship and Editor of The A.M.E. Church Review
 Roderick D. Belin, President/Publisher, AMEC Sunday School Union
 John Thomas III, Editor of The Christian Recorder, the official newspaper of the African Methodist Episcopal Church
 Garland F. Pierce, Executive Director of Christian Education

Clergy and educators
 Sarah Allen (1764–1849), Richard Allen's wife, who founded the Daughters of the Conference.
 Bishop Vinton Randolph Anderson (1927–2014), first African American to be elected President of the World Council of Churches, headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland (served 1991–98); author of My Soul Shouts and subject of an edited work (Gayraud Wilmore & Louis Charles Harvey, editors), A Model of A Servant Bishop; first native Bermudian elected a bishop in any church/denomination.
 Daniel Blue (1796–1884), founder of the Saint Andrews African Methodist Episcopal Church in Sacramento, California; the first AME church on the West Coast and the first black church in California.
 John M. Brown (1817–1893) bishop, leader in the underground railroad. He helped open a number of churches and schools, including the Payne Institute which became Allen University in Columbia, South Carolina and Paul Quinn College in Waco, Texas. He was also an early principal of Union Seminary which became Wilberforce University
 Jamal Harrison Bryant (1971– ), founded Empowerment Temple (AME Church) in Baltimore in 2000 with a congregation of 43 people. Today more than 7,500 members attend weekly services at this large influential congregation.
 Bishop Richard Harvey Cain, elected member of U.S. House of Representatives from South Carolina during Reconstruction era.
 Bishop William D. Chappelle (1857–1925), was president of Allen University in Columbia, South Carolina from 1897 to 1899.
 Daniel Coker (1780–1846), born "Issac Wright" in Baltimore, Maryland to mixed-race parents. Famous preacher and abolitionist. Ordained deacon in the new Methodist Episcopal Church by Bishop Francis Asbury in 1802 in Baltimore. Led Bethel AME Church in Baltimore. Participated in the organization of the national AME Church in Philadelphia in 1816. By 1820, sent as missionary to Sierra Leone, British colony in West Africa and considered founder of national Methodist Church there.
 Dennis C. Dickerson, Director of the Research and Scholarship and Professor at Vanderbilt University (retired).
 Bishop William Heard (1850–1937), AME minister and educator. Appointed by the U.S. government as "Minister Resident/Consul General" to Republic of Liberia, (1895–1898).
 King Solomon Dupont, AME clergy member who in the 1950s was the first African-American to seek public office in northern Florida since the Reconstruction era; in 1955, as Vice President of the Tallahassee Civic Association, he led a bus boycott, in which protesters lives were threatened, simultaneous to the Montgomery bus boycott led by Martin Luther King Jr. in Montgomery, Alabama.
 Orishatukeh Faduma, (1855–1946), African American missionary and educator.
 Floyd H. Flake (1945– ), former U.S. Congressman from New York State (1986–1998); senior pastor of the Greater Allen AME Cathedral in Jamaica, New York; former President of Wilberforce University
 Sarah E. Gorham, first female missionary from AME church, dying in Liberia in 1894.
 Bishop Carolyn Tyler Guidry (1937– ), second female AME bishop in church history.
 Bishop Vashti Murphy McKenzie, first female AME bishop in church history, best-selling author.
 Lyman S. Parks (1917–2009), Mayor of Grand Rapids, Michigan (1971–1976); Pastor of First Community AME Church in Grand Rapids.
 Bishop Daniel Payne (1811–1893), historian, educator and AME minister. First African-American president of an African-American university, Wilberforce University, in the U.S.
 Bishop Reverdy Cassius Ransom (1861–1959), one of the founders of NAACP via The Niagara Movement.
 T. W. Stringer (1815–1897), a freeman from Canada and first pastor of Bethel AME Church of Vicksburg in Vicksburg, Mississippi founded in 1864 as Mississippi's first AME church.  At Bethel AME in Vickbsurg, he established the T.W. Stringer Grand Lodge of Freemasonry, Mississippi's first Masonic Lodge.
 Frank M. Reid III (1951– ), Pastor of the Bethel AME Church in Baltimore from 1988 to 2016. Reid started The Bethel Outreach of Love Broadcast; Bethel was the first AME Church to have an international TV broadcast. Was selected as the 26th most influential person in Baltimore by local regional publication, Baltimore Magazine. His congregation's members include the mayor and city comptroller of Baltimore. He consulted for the TV show Amen, and guest starred several times on the popular HBO cable TV series The Wire. As of 2016, he was elevated to episcopal service as the 138th bishop  of the AME Church.
 Hiram Rhodes Revels, first African American to serve in the United States Senate, representing Mississippi from 1870 to 1871.
 Calvin H. Sydnor III, the 20th Editor of The Christian Recorder, the official newspaper of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (www.the-Christian-recorder.org)
 Bishop Benjamin Tucker Tanner (1835–1923), author of An Apology for African Methodism (1867), editor of the Christian Recorder, AME publication, and founder of the AME Church Review. As a bishop, presided over AME parishes, first, in Canada, Bermuda, and the West Indies, later, in New England, New York, New Jersey, and eastern Pennsylvania.
 D. Ormonde Walker, 66th bishop of the AME Church and 10th president of Wilberforce University
 Thomas Marcus Decatur Ward (1823–1894), AME missionary, preacher, church leader, and abolitionist
 Bishop Alexander Walker Wayman (1821–1895), born free in Caroline County, Maryland, joined AME Church in 1840, ordained minister three years later. Served as minister of Bethel AME Church in Baltimore (founded 1785), then located on East Saratoga near North Charles, St. Paul Street/Place (currently Preston Gardens), and North Calvert Streets, led "Negro/Colored" delegation in President Abraham Lincoln's funeral procession through Baltimore during stop during train trip back to Springfield, Illinois, April 1865. Lived on Hamilton Street alley behind First Unitarian Church off North Charles and West Franklin Streets.
 Jamye Coleman Williams (1918–2022), educator, community leader. Former editor of the AME Church Review; recipient of the NAACP Presidential Award (1999).
 Rev Clive Pillay (1953– ): community leader. Field Reporter The Christian Recorder, Former Founder ICY: UDF – Inter Church Youth
 Jarena Lee (1783–1864): First woman preacher in the AME church given the blessing to do so by founder, Richard Allen. Prominent AME leader in the Wesleyan-Holiness movement. The First African American woman in the United States to have an autobiography published.
 Juliann Jane Tillman, woman preacher in the AME Church, was well known for her widely reproduced 1844 lithograph portrait.

Ecumenism
In May 2012, The African Methodist Episcopal Church entered into full communion with the racially integrated United Methodist Church, and the predominantly black/African American members of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, African Union Methodist Protestant Church, Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, and Union American Methodist Episcopal Church, in which these Churches agreed to "recognize each other's churches, share sacraments, and affirm their clergy and ministries", bringing a semblance of unity and reconciliation to those church bodies which follow in the footsteps of John and Charles Wesley.

Social issues
The AME Church is active regarding issues of social justice and has invested time in reforming the criminal justice system. The AME Church also opposes "elective abortion". On women's issues, the AME has supported gender equality and, in 2000, first elected a woman to become bishop. In 2004, the denomination voted to prohibit same-sex marriages in its churches, but did not establish a position on ordination. There are openly gay clergy ordained in the AME and "the AME Church's Doctrine and Discipline has no explicit policy regarding gay clergy". In 2019, the Council of Bishops decided to allow a proposal to allow same-sex marriages in church to be considered at the General Conference in 2020. While debating marriage in 2021, the AME confirmed that, while the church does not allow same-sex marriages, "it does not bar LGBTQ individuals from serving as pastors or otherwise leading the denomination." The AME General Conference voted against a bill to allow same-sex marriages in church while also voting to approve a committee to explore and provide recommendations for changes to church doctrine and discipline and for pastoral care for LGBTQ people.

During the 2016  General Conference, the AME Church invited Hillary Clinton to offer an address to the delegates and clergy. Additionally, the AME Church voted to take "a stand against climate change".  AME Church works with non-partisan VoteRiders to spread state-specific information on voter ID requirements.

See also

 A.M.E. Church Review, quarterly journal of the African Methodist Episcopal Church
 Religion of Black Americans
 African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church
 Black church
 British Methodist Episcopal Church in Canada
 Christian Methodist Episcopal Church
 Churches Uniting in Christ (formerly the Consultation on Church Union [COCU] – founded 1960).
 List of African Methodist Episcopal churches
 Christianity in the United States
 :Category:African Methodist Episcopal bishops
 :Category:Universities and colleges affiliated with the African Methodist Episcopal Church
 14th District of the African Methodist Episcopal Church

References

Further reading
 Bailey, Julius H. Race Patriotism Protest and Print Culture in the AME Church. Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 2012.
 Campbell, James T. Songs of Zion: The African Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States and South Africa. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.
 Cone, James. God Our Father, Christ Our Redeemer, Man Our Brother: A Theological Interpretation of the AME Church, AME Church Review, vol. 106, no. 341 (1991).
 Dickerson, Dennis C. The African Methodist Episcopal Church (Cambridge University Press 2020) excerpt, a major scholarly history.
 Gregg, Howard D. History of the African Methodist Episcopal Church: The Black Church in Action. Nashville, TN: Henry A. Belin, Jr., 1980.
 Owens, A. Nevell. Formation of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in the Nineteenth Century: Rhetoric of Identification (Palgrave Macmillan US, 2014)
 Wayman, Alexander W. Cyclopaedia of African Methodism. Baltimore: Methodist Episcopal Book Depository, 1882.

External links

 Official website of "The Christian Recorder"
 Women's Missionary Society of the AME church
 AMEC Office of Employment Security
 AME Church Storehouse
 AME Church Department of Global Witness & Ministry
 AME Digital Archives at Payne College
 AMEC Department of Christian Education
 The AMEC Lay Organization
 Richard Allen Young Adult Council
 AMECHealth.org The Official AME Health Commission

1816 establishments in Pennsylvania
Historically African-American Christian denominations
History of Methodism in the United States
Members of the National Council of Churches
Members of the World Council of Churches
Methodist denominations established in the 19th century
Religious organizations established in 1816

African Methodist Episcopal Church


Heinrich Wilhelm von Freytag (17 March 1720, Estorf – 2 January 1798, Hannover ) was an officer in the service of the Electorate of Brunswick-Lüneburg (Hanover).

Career

B.1720 in Estorf, Freytag rose to prominence during the Seven Years' War, organising & commanding a corps of light infantry, the Freytag Jägers. At the Battle of Bergen 17 April 1759 he commanding 9 companies of Jägers & 2 squadrons of Prussian Hussars.

Promoted Field Marshal in 1792, he was appointed to raise and command the 3,873 man Hanoverian electoral contingent to the Holy Roman Empire. This force was absorbed into the general army mobilization at the end of 1792. Freytag commanded the Hanoverian troops and the 13–15,000 man Austro-Hanoverian corps under the Duke of York in the Flanders Campaign in 1793, seeing action at Rüme (St.Amand) 1 May, Famars 23rd, the siege of Valenciennes 13 June-28 July, and Cæsar's Camp 7/8 August. In the Siege of Dunkirk he commanded the left wing covering column. On 6 September he was driven back by Houchard at the Battle of Hondschoote, where he was wounded and captured, but rescued the following day by Wallmoden's counter-attack. He resigned soon after due to poor relations with the Duke of York & was replaced by Wallmoden.

Freytag died on 2 January 1798 in Hanover.

Assessment
He knew the Duke of York from when the Prince studied in Hanover in the 1780s. Relations between the two were seriously strained right from the beginning of the campaign. At St. Amand 1 May York tried to locate him & Bussche to bring their troops forward, "but found neither at home, because they too had ridden out to reconnoitre, which annoyed the Duke very much, because he had expected to find them in their quarters. The Duke then went to Rüme, but first ordered the Light Dragoons to advance. The Field Marshal, however, forbade their marching, and it was only after fresh orders that they set out, but arrived too late… The Field Marshal declined to sit by the Duke at his table that day, and left before the joints were served".

Fortescue claims that his 21-mile front in advance of Hondschoote was badly chosen, stamped him as a believer in the cordon system, and that a shorter front around the village would have been better. But Burne persuasively challenges this by citing 5 reasons for the weakness of Hondschoote – "it is difficult to see on what grounds Fortescue asserts that 'the position at Hondschoote would have covered the besiegers quite as efficiently and with less risk'. In my opinion Freytag occupied the best possible position; his mistake was that he was forgetful of the principal of maintenance of the objective – namely, to cover the besieging army – till pulled up sharply and rightly by the Duke... The fact that even without the Duke's aid Freytag very nearly held up the French is  a clear indication that with it the victory would almost certainly have gone to the Allies".

The Duke of York criticised his actions in the battle thus: "On the 6th of September, the day of the first attack upon the Field Marshal's Corps, He never would believe that the Enemy had forced the post on His left and turned His left flank in spite of repeated reports that were sent to Him, nor was it till six in the evening, that he consented to retreat, which he did in two Columns. Instead however of sending the Artillery and baggage with General Count Walmoden's Column which was the furthest from the Enemy, He chose to take them in the rear of His own Column. I shall not touch upon the subject of His and my brother Adolphus's being taken prisoners. I do not imagine there can be two opinions on the subject. I will only say that in consequence of this misfortune, everything would have been lost if it had not been for the presence of mind and coolness of Count Walmoden".

References

 Burne, Alfred, The Noble Duke of York: The Military Life of Frederick Duke of York and Albany, London: Staples Press (1949).
 Coutanceau, Michel Henri Marie, La Campagne de 1794 a l'Armée du Nord, (1903–08 5 Volumes) Paris: Chapelot .
 Fortescue, Sir John, British Campaigns in Flanders 1690–1794 (extracts from Volume 4 of A History of the British Army), London: Macmillan  (1918).
 Ompteda, CF In the King's German Legion. Memoirs of Baron Ompteda, Colonel in the King's German Legion During the Napoleonic Wars

Field marshals of Germany
German military personnel of the Seven Years' War
German military leaders of the French Revolutionary Wars
People from Nienburg (district)
1720 births
1798 deaths

Wilhelm von Freytag


Debbie Dobbins (October 28, 1963 – December 30, 1993) was a popular fitness competitor and fitness model during the early 1990s. Her life was cut short due to smoke inhalation in a house fire.

Biography
Dobbins was born in Olongapo, Philippines, of half Irish and half Filipino descent. When she was three her family moved to Portland, Oregon, where she grew up in the northwest side. She competed in a variety of sports in high school and college, including track and field and basketball. She graduated from college with a degree in Marketing and Advertising. After college, she began taking aerobic classes, and also took up running and weight training. Later she taught aerobics and cross training for seven years, and gradually made weight training a bigger part of her fitness regimen.

Dobbins moved to Los Angeles, California at age twenty-four to pursue a career in the fitness industry.  There she became an aerobics instructor and played volleyball for Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa.  While establishing herself as a fitness model she worked full-time for a leasing company, and did promotional work for Randy Pfund, coach of the Los Angeles Lakers. Debbie also worked as a cheerleader for the Portland Breakers of the USFL and Los Angeles Raiders of the NFL.

Her magazine cover appearances included Musclemag International and Iron Man.  She was also featured in Iron Man'''s special swimsuit issue and modeled for Iron Man gym wear.  In 1993, Debbie placed third in the Ms. Fitness USA competition and tied for second at the Ms. Galaxy.  Her death in late 1993 occurred as a result of smoke inhalation in a house fire.

In a 1994 episode of Hard Copy, it was speculated that there was foulplay involved with the fire causing her death.

Stats
Height: 5'7
Weight: 120-128 pounds

Contest history
1993 Miss Fitness USA - 3rd Runner-up
1993 Miss Fitness USA - 2nd Runner-up
1993 Miss Galaxy Fitness - 1st Runner-up

Magazine covers
December 1993 - Musclemag International
February 1994 - Iron Man
March 1994 - Musclemag International
July 1994 - Muscular Development

References
MUSCLEMAG INTERNATIONAL (March 1994). "Training Legs With Debbie Dobbins" by Martin Brown. Retrieved on 2007-01-03.

External links
Information and covers
Long Departed

1963 births
1993 deaths
Fitness and figure competitors
Deaths by smoke inhalation
Filipino emigrants to the United States
American people of Irish descent
People from Olongapo
American models of Filipino descent
National Football League cheerleaders
American sportswomen
20th-century American women
20th-century American people

Debbie Dobbins


The Sultanate of Rûm was a Sunni Muslim kingdom in Anatolia, founded by Süleyman I of Rüm of the Seljuk dynasty, from 1077 to 1308. Süleyman was a Muslim Turkoman ruler in Anatolia. The Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm Collapsed In 1308, Some time after The Mongol Invasion. After its collapse, many Beyliks were founded in Anatolia under the early time of the Ottoman Empire.

The Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm was formed in 1077, when the Seljuks defeated the Byzantine Empire and started to conquer their territories in Anatolia. This occurred after the Battle of Manzikert resulted in a Byzantine defeat in 1071 and the Seljuk Muslim tribes of Anatolia conquered large parts of Anatolia and formed their own Beyliks. The Seljuks set up the Sultanate of Rûm in Anatolia in 1077. It was formed on conquered Byzantine territory. Later, the Seljuk Empire would Fall, after that the Seljuk sultanate of Rum was mostly called "Seljuk Sultanate". This sultanate propagated the Islamization of Anatolia through the influx of several Turkoman tribes into regions of Anatolia which were earlier conquered from the Christian Byzantine Empire.

1300s disestablishments
Byzantine Empire
Former countries in Asia
Former countries in the Middle East
Former monarchies of Asia
Former principalities
History of Islam
History of Turkey
1070s establishments
Mongol Empire

Sultanate of Rum


The Group on Earth Observations (GEO) coordinates international efforts to build a Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS). It links existing and planned Earth observation systems and supports the development of new ones in cases of perceived gaps in the supply of environment-related information. It aims to construct a global public infrastructure for Earth observations consisting of a flexible and distributed network of systems and content providers.

Concept
Common Earth observation instruments include ocean buoys, meteorological stations and balloons, seismic and Global Positioning System (GPS) stations, remote-sensing satellites, computerized forecasting models and early warning systems. These instruments are used to measure and monitor specific aspects of Earth's physical, chemical and biological systems.

To be useful, the raw data collected must be processed, archived, interpreted, and made available via easy-to-use channels in the form of information comprehensible not only by remote sensing experts. Earth observations are vital for policymaking and assessment in many fields.

GEO focuses on facilitating access to Earth observation data for nine priority areas: natural and human-induced disasters, environmental sources of health hazards, energy management, climate change and its impacts, freshwater resources, weather forecasting, ecosystem management, sustainable agriculture, and biodiversity conservation.

History and structure
GEO was a result of the first ever Earth Observing Summit held in Washington, D.C. in 2003.  The Summit event was the result of efforts by NOAA Administrator Conrad Lautenbacher who spearheaded the GEO efforts as part of the Bush '43 Administration. GEO was established formally in February 2005 by the Third Earth Observation Summit in Brussels at the end of a process that started in 2003 with the First Earth Observation Summit in Washington, DC. It was launched in response to calls for action by the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development and the Group of Eight (G8) leading industrialized countries. These high-level meetings recognized that international collaboration is essential for exploiting the growing potential of Earth observations to support decision making in an increasingly complex and environmentally stressed world.

GEO is a voluntary partnership of governments and international organizations. It provides a framework within which these partners can develop new projects and coordinate their strategies and investments. As of January 2016, GEO's membership includes 102 governments including the European Commission. In addition, 92 intergovernmental, international and regional organizations with a mandate in Earth observation or related issues have been recognized as participating organizations (see lists below). Each member and participating organization is represented by a principal and a principal alternate. Members make financial contributions to GEO on a voluntary basis.

GEO is constructing GEOSS on the basis of a 10-year strategic plan from 2016 to 2025. The plan defines a vision statement for GEOSS, its purpose and scope, expected benefits, and eight "Societal Benefit Areas" (disaster resilience, public health surveillance, energy and mineral resources management, sustainable urban development, water resources management, biodiversity and ecosystem sustainability, food security and sustainable agriculture and infrastructure and transport management - with climate as a cross-cutting issue), technical and capacity-building priorities, and the GEO governance structure.

GEO is governed by a plenary consisting of all members and participating organizations. GEO meets in plenary at least once a year at the level of senior officials and periodically at the ministerial level. Members make decisions at the plenary by consensus.

Participating organizations

As of January 2016, there were 143 participating organizations.

References

External links
Group on Earth Observations (official website)

Canadian Group on Earth Observations
German GEO
European Commission
Europe GMES
The Netherlands and GEO
US GEO
US NOAA
GEOSS Best Practices Wiki, entries by the GMES Network of Users

Earth observation
Geographic data and information organizations
International scientific organizations

Group on Earth Observations


Ingeborg Eriksdotter ( – 24/26 March 1287) was Queen of Norway and the wife of King Magnus VI. She was born a Danish princess, daughter of Eric IV of Denmark. As queen dowager, she played an important part in politics during the minority of her son King Eirik II of Norway in 1280-82.

Biography
Ingeborg was born to Eric IV of Denmark and Jutta of Saxony. Ingeborg was only about six years-old when her father was killed. Her mother returned to Saxony and married Count Burchard VIII of Querfurt-Rosenburg.  In large part, Ingeborg and her three sisters lived in the court of her uncle King Christopher I of Denmark and Queen Margaret Sambiria.  The four sisters were heirs to substantial lands in Denmark. The struggle to claim Ingeborg's inheritance from her murdered father would later involve Norway in intermittent conflicts with Denmark for decades to come.

Ingeborg was promised in marriage by the Danish regency government to Magnus, the son of King Haakon IV of Norway. Ingeborg arrived in Tønsberg on 28 July 1261, after she was retrieved, at the instruction of King Haakon, from the monastery in  Horsens (dominikanerkloster ved Horsens).  On 11 September 1261, she married Magnus in Bergen.   Magnus and Ingeborg were crowned directly after their marriage, and Magnus was given the district of Ryfylke for his personal upkeep. The marriage was described as happy.

On 16 December 1263 King Haakon IV of Norway died while fighting the Scottish king over the Hebrides, and Magnus became the ruler of Norway. Ingeborg is not known to have played any part in politics as queen. Her two older sons, Olaf (1262 – 15 March 1267) and Magnus (b. and d. 1264), died in infancy, but the youngest two would later become Kings of Norway: Eric II (1268 – 13 July 1299) and Haakon V (ca. 10 April 1270 – 8 May 1319).

In 1280, she became a widow. Ingeborg was an important figure in the leadership of the country during the minority of King Eirik, though she was not formally named regent. Her influence grew after her son was declared adult in 1283. Her principal ally was Alv Erlingsson, who had been a second cousin of her husband King Magnus and served as the governor Borgarsyssel which today makes up the county of Østfold.

During the reign of her cousin King Eric V of Denmark, Ingeborg  begun a feud regarding  her inheritance, which she had never received.  This largely private feud caused hostility between Norway and the German Hanseatic cities and a tense relationship with Denmark. Several Danish nobles, including Count Jacob of Halland, took her side against the Danish monarch, but she died before the affair was finished.

References

Other sources
Koht, Halvdan Norske dronningar  (1926)

|-

House of Estridsen
1244 births
1287 deaths
Norwegian royal consorts
Danish princesses
Regents of Norway
13th-century women rulers
House of Sverre
Fairhair dynasty
13th-century Norwegian people
13th-century Norwegian women
13th-century Danish nobility
13th-century Danish women
Daughters of kings
Queen mothers

Ingeborg of Denmark, Queen of Norway


The African Diplomatic Corps is a body consisting of the 53 ambassadors to the United States that represent African countries. Its goal is to lobby United States politicians and educate diplomats, educators, policy analysts, and the media about current events in Africa. The African Diplomatic Corps founded "Africa Week" in Washington, D.C., and the corps' current leader is Serge Mombouli, Ambassador of the Republic of Congo, who has been its dean since 2015. He succeeded Ambassador Roble Olhaye of Djibouti who died July 22, 2015.

References

See also
 Diplomatic Corps

Ambassadors to the United States
United States–African relations

African Diplomatic Corps


The Man in the Moonlight is a 1919 American silent drama film a set in the great north, starring Colleen Moore and Monroe Salisbury.

Plot
Two strangers arrive at the wedding of Sergeant O'Farrell of the Royal Mounted Police and Rosine Delorme. O'Farrell receives an urgent message that Rosine's wayward brother Louis has escaped from prison with the notorious Rossingnol. He puts off the nuptials and leaves in search of the criminals. One of the strangers convinces Rosine to guide him to a cabin at the end of the Passage Du Mort where Louis awaits her. The cabin however is empty, the stranger is actually Rossingnol. Rossingnol carries Rosine to a bed and hypnotizes her.

In the meanwhile Louis, wounded, warns the police are on their way. Rossingnol has Louis take Rosine. At his signal (a gunshot) Louis and Rosine must run for the border with America. The police shoot Rossingnol and Louis and Rosine bolt. Rossingnol dies in the arms of his love, who has followed him, and hide in the bushes until they hear a shot to signal them to head for the border. After Rossingnol is shot and dies in the arms of his sweetheart who followed him to the cabin, O'Farrell joins Rosine and Louis in the United States.

Cast
 Monroe Salisbury as Rossingnol
 Colleen Moore as Rosine Delorme
 William Stowell as Sergeant O'Farrell
 Alfred Allen as Captain Hendricks
 Harry DuRoy as Ferguson
 Sydney Franklin as Pierre Delorme
 Virginia Foltz as Mother Delorme
 Arthur Jasmine as Louis Delorme
 Johnnie Cooke as Sancho Jones

Background
The Man in the Moonlight came between Colleen's work for the Selig Polyscope Company and the Christie Studios. At the time, she was still almost exclusively a dramatic actress and had no comic training. Her roles up to that point (and typical for motion picture roles for women in the motion picture industry at the time), she was a damsel in distress.

Preservation status
A 35mm print of this film is in the collection of George Eastman House.

References

Bibliography
Jeff Codori (2012), Colleen Moore; A Biography of the Silent Film Star, McFarland Publishing, Print , EBook

External links

The Man in the Moonlight at IMDB
Man in the Moonlight at TCM Database
Man in the Moonlight at NY Times
lantern slide

1919 films
1919 drama films
Silent American drama films
American silent feature films
Films directed by Paul Powell (director)
Universal Pictures films
American black-and-white films
1910s American films

The Man in the Moonlight


The merge window is a software development process which is sometimes used by large projects.

The merge window is a period of time that occurs directly after the release of a new version of the software. During this time, many patches are merged and hence have a long time to get scrutinized and tested before the next release.

The Linux kernel has used the merge window process since July 2005 with the release of version 2.6.14. Since then, every 2.6.*, 3.* and 4.* release has been followed by a two-week merge window.

This causes much work for the project maintainers who have to merge all the patches. The process may be split up with people who inspect, approve and merge the patches.

References

External links
 Development process of u-boot

Version control
Software project management

Merge window


The Polish Officer (1995) is a novel by Alan Furst.

Plot summary
In September 1939, as Warsaw falls to the Wehrmacht, Captain Alexander de Milja is recruited to Poland's newly formed underground army, the Związek Walki Zbrojnej (ZWZ), or the Union of Armed Struggle. His first mission is to smuggle the national gold reserves out of the country by means of a refugee train to Bucharest. Under a series of aliases, De Milja undertakes various missions to sabotage German operations. These see him collude with fellow saboteurs in the back alleys and black-market bistros of Paris, working with the underground in the tenements of Warsaw, assisting the British attack on German naval targets in the harbor of Calais, and teaming with partisan guerrillas in the frozen forests of the Ukraine.

Characters
Alexander de Milja is a young army officer. His family belongs to the Polish aristocracy, and he is a graduate of the elite French military school Saint-Cyr. Working as a cartographer in the Polish military before the fall of Poland, De Milja is then recruited to the underground, where his exploits see him assume various aliases; he passes at any one time as a Russian writer, a Slovak coal merchant, or a Polish horse breeder.

Anton Vyborg is De Milja's superior in the armed forces and a key source of help. He also appears in The Spies of Warsaw and Dark Star.

Genya Beilis is De Milja's main love interest in the novel.

Themes

Reviews

Novels by Alan Furst
1995 novels
American spy novels
American historical novels
Novels set during World War II
Novels set in Paris
Fiction set in 1939

The Polish Officer


The Financial Services Board (FSB) was the government of South Africa's financial regulatory agency responsible for the non-banking financial services industry in South Africa from 1990 to 2018. On the 1 April 2018 its responsibilities were split into two new agencies the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) for conduct regulation and the Prudential Authority (PA) for prudential regulation.

Prior to its dissolution it was an independent body which had a mandate to supervise and regulate the non-bank financial services industry in the public interest. This included the regulation of the biggest stock exchange in Africa the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.

History
The FSB was established in 1991 based on recommendations by the Van der Horst Committee to create an independent body to supervise and regulate the non-banking financial services industry. A number of additional acts later expanded and increased the role of the FSB.  These included;

In September 2004, the Financial Advisory and Intermediary Services Act (FAIS) expanded the mandate of the FSB to include aspects of market conduct in the banking industry.

Financial Intelligence Centre Act (2001) and subsequent amendments have added responsibilities to the FSB to combat money laundering.

Reorganization into Prudential Authority and Financial Sector Conduct Authority
On 21 August 2017 the Financial Sector Regulation Act (FSR Act) was signed into law.

Among other changes. the FSR Act created a prudential regulator, the Prudential Authority (PA) and a market conduct regulator, the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA).

 The PA is responsible for regulating banks, insurers, cooperative financial institutions, financial conglomerates and certain market infrastructures.
 FSCA was given the mandate of market conduct regulator of financial institutions that provide financial products and financial services, and financial institutions that are licensed in terms of a financial sector law, including banks, insurers, retirement funds and administrators, and market infrastructures.

On April 1, 2018, the PA assumed the FSB's responsibilities for non bank financial institution prudential supervision and the FSB's responsibilities for market conduct were assumed by FSCA

Responsibilities and functions
The FSB's stated vision was "to promote and maintain a sound financial investment environment in South Africa"

It was responsible for all non-bank financial intermediaries, which included;

 Capital Markets
 Collective Investment Schemes
 Financial Services Providers
 Insurers
 Re-insurers, short and long-term
 Lloyd's correspondents
 Other credit agents
 Nominee companies
 Retirement funds
 Friendly Societies
 Funerals

It was given responsibility for ensuring that the regulated entities complied with the relevant legislation as well as capital adequacy requirements to promote financial soundness of these entities, whereby the investing community would be protected.

It was given enforcement powers to deal with breaches through the enforcement committee. The Committee could impose unlimited penalties, compensation orders and cost orders. Such orders were enforceable on the same basis as a judgment of the Supreme Court of South Africa.

It also ran a customer complaints service and a separate appeals board could be approached by anybody aggrieved by a decision of the FSB or its executive officers. The appeals board was an independent tribunal, whose members were neither employees of the FSB nor active participants in the financial services industry. Its chairman and the members were appointed by the Minister of Finance.

International
FSB was a member of International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) and is a signatory of the IOSCO multilateral MoUs.

The FSB participated in the activities of African regulatory bodies, particularly those in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region.  It had long standing close relations with Committee Of Insurance, Securities And Non-Banking Financial Authorities (CISNA), part of the SADC directorate.

Structure
The FSB's board oversaw its operations through various committees. The board also appointed the FSB executive officer who presided over the day-to-day running of the FSB. Besides those committees, the FSB also provided funding for the 'Office of the FAIS Ombud' and the 'Office of the PFA' on the basis of approved budgets. The Offices were part of the same regulatory framework within which the FSB operated, but functioned independently of the FSB, as their sole mandate was to dispose of complaints lodged by consumers of financial services in terms of their respective Acts.

The Executive Officer was also the Registrar of Non-banking Financial Institutions. There were four Deputy Executive Officers responsible for supervision of the various industries, namely Financial Advisory and Intermediary Services, Retirement Funds and Friendly Societies, and Insurance and Investment Institutions.

Failures and mismanagement
The FSB was unable to prevent a number of significant scandals and disasters in South Africa's pension funds industry. It was also accused of favouritism and overcharging for legal and administrative services. Some of its interactions with financial service providers have been described as harsh and bizarre, which led to criticism from the press as well as the financial services industry. In a report released in March 2019, the Public Protector, Busisiwe Mkhwebane, castigated the FSB's officials for a variety of failures spanning more than a decade. The FSCA, successor to the FSB, countered however that the report was "riddled with inaccuracies".

See also
Economy of South Africa
South African Reserve Bank
Securities Commission

References

South Africa
Finance in South Africa
Government agencies of South Africa

Financial Services Board (South Africa)


This is a detailed list of human spaceflights from 2001 to 2010, including the first full era of the International Space Station, first Shenzhou flights and first commercial space flights.

Red indicates fatalities.
Green indicates a suborbital flight.

See also

List of human spaceflight programs
List of human spaceflights
List of human spaceflights, 1961–1970
List of human spaceflights, 1971–1980
List of human spaceflights, 1981–1990
List of human spaceflights, 1991–2000
List of human spaceflights, 2011–2020
List of human spaceflights, 2021–present

References
Vostok and Voskhod flight history
Mercury flight history
X-15 flight history (altitudes given in feet)
Gemini flight history
Apollo flight history (student resource)
Skylab flight history
Apollo-Soyuz flight history
Space Shuttle flight history infographic
Shenzhou flight history timeline
SpaceShipOne flight history

2001-2010
2000
Spaceflight timelines
2000s-related lists

List of human spaceflights, 2001–2010


Omenala Griot Afrocentric Teaching Museum is an Afrocentric teaching museum in the West End neighborhood of Atlanta. It was founded in 1992. The museum offers visitors a "hands-on" African American experience by seeing, hearing, saying, touching and doing. The museum's stated goals is to "rectify, reclaim and restore the contributions of Black people throughout history, which have been denied, ignored and omitted." Murals line the garden walls of the museum, picturing Afrocentric subjects.

References

Afrocentrism
Museums in Atlanta
African-American museums in Georgia (U.S. state)


The Hand is a 1960 British horror film directed by Henry Cass and written by Ray Cooney and Tony Hilton. The film is memorable for its nightmarish premise and opening scene that belies its censorship certificate.

Plot
The story begins during the Burma campaign (mislabeled as '1946'), in which three captured British soldiers are threatened with torture if they refuse to divulge military information. Two refuse and have their hands chopped off.

Some time later, in post-War London, a gentleman of the night is found with his hand surgically removed and £500 in his pockets. This begins a criminal investigation, returning the plot to the opening situation.

Cast
 Derek Bond as Roberts / Roger Crawshaw
 Ronald Leigh-Hunt as Inspector Munyard
 Ray Cooney as Sgt. David Pollitt
 Reed De Rouen as Michael John Brodie
 Bryan Coleman as George Adams
 Walter Randall as Japanese commander
 Tony Hilton as Police Sgt. Paul Foster
 Harold Scott as Charlie Taplow
 Gwenda Ewen as Nurse Johns
 Michael Moore as Dr. Metcalfe
 Ronald Wilson as Doctor
 Garard Green as Dr. Simon Crawshaw
 Jean Dallas as Nurse Geiber
 David Blake Kelly as Jay Marshall
 Reginald Hearne as Noel Brodie
 Madeleine Burgess as Mrs. Brodie

Critical reception
Britmovie wrote, "this Ray Cooney scripted post-war revenge thriller opens promisingly enough but soon all tension and mystery is lost due to the predictable plot development and clumsy editing" ; while Unseen Films wrote, "this is a neat little film that never fully makes 100% sense...I liked this movie a great deal. It's far from perfect, but it does hold your attention."

References

External links

1960 films
British horror films
Films directed by Henry Cass
1960 horror films
Films shot at Nettlefold Studios
1960s English-language films
1960s British films

The Hand (1960 film)


Graham Duff (born 1964) is an English writer, actor and producer. He was born in Blackburn, Lancashire, and lives in Brighton. He graduated from the University of Brighton.  His work for TV and radio is typified by intricate plotting, large casts, frequently dark subject matter and a love of wordplay and surrealism.

His writing is influenced by the worlds of horror and science fiction, musical sub-cultures and the realms of fine art and art house cinema.  He is a noted music enthusiast, having worked as a DJ and selected all the soundtrack music for seven series of his TV show Ideal, as well as compiling an Ideal soundtrack album and helping to release albums by the left-field bands Celebricide and Cyclobe.  He also worked as a script editor on seven series of BBC Radio 4's Count Arthur Strong's Radio Show! and the Alan Partridge movie Alpha Papa (2013).

Early career
Duff began writing and performing in the mid-1980s with the performance art group Theatre of the Bleeding Obelisk and the fringe theatre company Wax Cabinet.  During this period, he also worked occasionally as an assistant editor at Ikon, the video department of Manchester's Factory Records.  By the early 1990s he was a member of the comedy improvisation group "Fish-heads".  With Wax Cabinet colleague Malcolm Boyle, he wrote for BBC Radio 1's Mark Goodier Show and contributed sketches to BBC Radio 3's The Music Makers.  Duff also DJ'd and hosted comedy phone-in shows in the guise of self-help guru Doctor Devlin on a number of independent and pirate radio stations, as well as presenting "The Duff Almanac", a regular feature on BBC Radio 4's Loose Ends.

Stage
His first one-man stage show was 'Burroughs' (1992) – based on the life and times of infamous beat author William S. Burroughs.  The show won a Brighton Festival award and was followed by "Diary of a Madman" (1993), adapted from the novel of the same name by Russian absurdist author Nikolai Gogol.  With comedian and writer James Poulter, Duff toured internationally with the stand up shows "The A-Z of Drugs" (1995) and "The A-Z of Taboo" (1996).  These were followed by another solo comedy show "Vinyl Anorak" (1997) about the world of music obsessives.

Television
Along with Henry Normal and Steve Coogan, Duff co-wrote the six-part comedy horror homage Dr. Terrible's House of Horrible  (BBC2 2001), which starred Coogan in seven roles; Duff appeared in four supporting roles. Duff then created and wrote all 53 episodes of Ideal (BBC3 & BBC2 2005–2011) starring Johnny Vegas as Salford cannabis dealer Moz. Duff also appeared in the show as the promiscuous and bitchy gay man Brian, as well as an uncredited role as Moz's frightening, masked neighbour Fist.  He co-wrote two series and a Christmas special of the sit-com Hebburn (BBC2 2012–2013) with stand-up comedian and series creator Jason Cook as well as appearing in several episodes as newspaper photographer David Cowgill.  He also created and wrote the Sky Arts television series The Nightmare Worlds of H. G. Wells which starred Ray Winstone, Michael Gambon and Rupert Graves; Duff also appeared in the first episode.

Radio
Duff wrote and performed the lead roles in his six-part comedy series Stereonation (adapted from the stage show Vinyl Anorak) which was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in the summer of 1998.  From 1998 to 2000, he presented Totally Wired, an alternative music show on Brighton's Juice 107.2.  Following this, Duff wrote three series of the BBC Radio 4 sci-fi sit-com Nebulous (2005–2008) starring Mark Gatiss as Professor Nebulous.  The show featured Duff as the Professor's assistant Rory.  Duff has also worked as the script editor on all seven series of BBC Radio 4's Count Arthur Strong's Radio Show! (2005–2011) starring Steve Delaney, the fourth series of which won the prestigious Sony Gold Award. Duff currently presents a weekly show, Graham Duff's Mixtape, on Brighton based radio station Slack City which is run by the same directors as Juice 107.2.

Acting
Aside from appearing in his own work, Duff has a small speaking part as a Death Eater in the films Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 (2010) and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 (2011). He has also appeared in ITV's comedy series Monkey Trousers (2005) and Channel 4's Ketch & Hiro-pon Get it On (2008). He appeared as a convicted child molester and cult leader in two series of David Cross's dark sitcom The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret (2011) and as a Nazi in the Channel 4 comedy show Totally Tom (2011). He played greengrocer Mike Greatbatch in Alan Partridge: Welcome to the Places of My Life (2012) and press photographer David Cowgill in Hebburn (2012-2013). He also played a malevolent bio-mechanoid waiter in "Deep Breath", Peter Capaldi's debut episode of Doctor Who.

Other work
Duff has written articles for The Guardian and Wire Magazine.  He has also contributed a chapter to The Cosey Complex - a book about the life and work of musician and performance artist Cosey Fanni Tutti and written an introduction to Tranart - a monograph on the visual art of Val Denham. Duff has made guest contributions on a number of albums by "People Like Us" aka Vicki Bennett. He acted in Exile — an audio drama based on Doctor Who, as well as writing another — Faith Stealer starring Paul McGann.  In 2013, alongside Pat Cahill he co-created and co-wrote Still Reeling, a series of two online comedy blaps for Channel 4 starring Cahill and Matt King.

Partial filmography
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 (2010) - Death Eater
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 (2011) - Death Eater
High-Rise (2015) - Queue Person

References

External links

 Graham Duff's Mixtape on Slack City
 Graham Duff interview on Nebulous and Dr Terrible
 IDEAL (series) on BBC iPlayer

1964 births
Living people
Alumni of the University of Brighton
English radio writers
English screenwriters
English male screenwriters
English male television actors
English television producers

Graham Duff


Executive Order 13355 is a United States Presidential executive order signed on August 27, 2004, by President George W. Bush. Its goal was "Strengthened Management of the Intelligence Community". It supplemented and partially superseded Executive Order 12333, signed in 1981 by President Ronald Reagan, and was in turn partially supplemented and superseded by Executive Order 13470 in 2008.

Many of the clauses of the new executive order changed how US intelligence agencies were governed and how they ultimately reported to the President, to reflect that when Executive Order 12333 was signed, the DCI Director of Central Intelligence was also the nominal chief of all US intelligence agencies. President Bush had created a new position, the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), and the changes reflected that the US intelligence agencies were to report to the President through the DNI.

References

American intelligence gathering law
Executive orders of George W. Bush

Executive Order 13355


Robert St Lawrence, 3rd Baron Howth (born c.1435 – died before 1488) was a leading nobleman
and  statesman in 15th-century Ireland who held the office of Lord Chancellor of Ireland. Through his second marriage, he was a close connection to the new Tudor dynasty, to which his son was staunchly loyal.

Background
Robert was born about 1435, the eldest son of Christopher St Lawrence, 2nd Baron Howth. There is some dispute about the identity of his mother. The Dictionary of National Biography entry for Robert mentions that she was Elizabeth Bermingham of Athenry and his father's first wife. But some modern researchers consider her to be Anne Plunkett (probably of Ratoath, County Meath), a cousin of Christopher Plunkett, 1st Baron Killeen, as first (rather than second) wife of his father. After his father's death, Anne remarried Anthony Percy. Upon her death, she was buried at Howth beside her first husband.

The reason for revising the identity of his mother has been a reference (considered reliable) to Robert's descendants being distant cousins of Christopher Plunkett, 1st Baron Killeen. But the revisionists may have overlooked the fact that Robert's paternal grandfather's mother was Alice Plunkett, Lady Howth, born circa 1350, daughter of John Plunkett of Beaulieu.

Robert succeeded to the title between 1462 and 1465. He was granted possession of the family estates by an Act of Parliament in 1463, suggesting that his father had died either in that year or the previous year.

Career
O'Flanagan calls him "a nobleman of considerable abilities, who filled several offices connected with the Government of Ireland". He was also, like his father, determined to assert his family's traditional rights as Lords of Howth, and was sometimes accused of overstepping the law as a result. In 1468 he was charged with piracy, the particulars of the offence being that he has attacked a Breton merchant ship off nearby Lambay Island, pursuing it as far as Drogheda, and seizing the anchor. However, he was acquitted of the charge of piracy. Much later, in 1482, he had a dispute with Dublin Corporation over its right to levy customs on the port of Howth, insisting that by long tradition this was his sole prerogative as Lord of Howth (his father had claimed the same right). He agreed to send the matter to arbitration, and accepted the arbitrator's verdict that the Corporation was in the right. He was receiver of customs for the ports of Rush, Rogerstown and Portrane. In 1460, he was charged with overseeing the drainage work at Balrothery bog, Fingal.

He was an associate of the powerful and charismatic Thomas FitzGerald, 7th Earl of Desmond, whose supposed ambitions to rule Ireland aroused the suspicion and hostility of the English Crown. The notoriously vindictive session of the Parliament of Ireland held at Drogheda in 1468 was largely devoted to destroying Desmond and his associates. Howth, however, was able to obtain an exemption from any acts of forfeiture passed by Parliament,  and an indictment against him was quashed in the same session of Parliament.

He was High Sheriff of County Dublin in 1456, Chancellor of the Green Wax in 1468, Chancellor of the Exchequer of Ireland in 1478 (the last two offices were often interchangeable), and Clerk of the Court of Common Pleas (Ireland). Like his father, he played a key role in the defence of Dublin. He was ordered to erect a tower at Kilmainham bridge, and in 1467, was charged with organising the militia. In 1474, he was chosen to be one of the thirteen Knights of the Brotherhood of Saint George, a standing army   charged with defending the Pale against invasion by neighbouring Gaelic clans, and with keeping the peace generally.

In 1483, Richard III chose him to be Lord Chancellor of Ireland, despite opposition from Gerald FitzGerald, 8th Earl of Kildare, who was then almost all-powerful in Ireland. The Great Seal of Ireland had briefly been in the keeping of Walter Champfleur, the Abbot of St Mary's Abbey,  Dublin. Lord  Howth's continued employment by the Yorkist kings after his second marriage in 1478 is surprising, given that his second wife Joan Beaufort was a close relative of Henry Tudor, who was to overthrow the House of York in 1485. In any event, his tenure as Lord Chancellor was short, ending either with his removal or his death. His death probably took place later in 1483, although some sources place it as late as 1487.

Family
Robert married firstly Alice White, daughter of Nicholas White of Killester, and by this marriage acquired the manor of Killester. In 1478 he made a second and politically significant marriage to Joan Beaufort, daughter of Edmund Beaufort, 2nd Duke of Somerset and Eleanor Beauchamp. Somerset's seemingly remote claim to the English Crown as the legal heir of John of Gaunt was inherited by his cousin Margaret Beaufort's son Henry VII, who became the first Tudor monarch. In the years following the marriage the St Lawrences, unlike most of the Anglo-Irish nobility, were reliable supporters of the Tudor dynasty: clearly, the family connection was too valuable to them not to be taken full advantage of.

He had six children:
Nicholas St Lawrence, 4th Baron Howth
Thomas St. Lawrence, who became Attorney General for Ireland and a judge of the Court of King's Bench (Ireland)
Walter
Christopher
Genet, who married Thomas Fitzsimons
Anne, who married William Golding.

Some sources state that his second marriage was childless, but his eldest son Nicholas, who was born about 1460, must have been about twenty years older than his second son Thomas, who was studying law at the Inns of Court in London in 1503 and survived until 1553, so it is likely that Thomas, Walter and Christopher were children of their father's second marriage to Joan Beaufort. Joan remarried Sir Richard Fry, and died in 1518.

References

Politicians from County Dublin
15th-century Irish politicians
Barons Howth

Robert St Lawrence, 3rd Baron Howth


At the 1994 Commonwealth Games, the athletics event were held in Victoria, BC, Canada, at the Centennial Stadium on the grounds of the University of Victoria. A total of 44 events were contested, of which 22 by male 19 by female athletes. Furthermore, 2 men's disability events were held within the programme.

There were 126 medals decided in total with England topping the table with 36 medals in total. Australia were second with 22 and the host nation Canada came third with 15.

The competition saw both the rise and fall of Horace Dove-Edwin, a sprinter from Sierra Leone. He became his country's first Commonwealth medallist with an unexpected silver medal behind Linford Christie in the 100 metres. He had not attended the opening ceremony as his country did not have enough money for a uniform and his story attracted much public sympathy and attention from the press. His meteoric rise (improving from 10.34 seconds to 10.02 over two days) was swiftly punctured as he was banned for two years after his doping test came back positive for the steroid stanozolol.

Medal summary

Men

Men's EAD

Women

Medal table

Participation

See also
Athletics at the 1992 Summer Olympics
1994 in athletics (track and field)
1995 World Championships in Athletics

References
General

Commonwealth Games Medallists - Men. GBR Athletics. Retrieved on 2010-07-21.
Commonwealth Games Medallists - Women. GBR Athletics. Retrieved on 2010-07-21.
Specific

1994
Commonwealth Games
1994 Commonwealth Games events
1994 Commonwealth Games

Athletics at the 1994 Commonwealth Games


The Calendar Rohrbough House is a historic house located at 3rd and Washington Streets in Kinmundy, Illinois. The Italianate house was built in 1875 for Calendar Rohrbough, a local merchant and politician. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.

Architecture
The house is designed in the Italianate style. A verandah wraps around the south and west sides of the house; the verandah features scroll brackets on its cornice and at the top of its supporting posts. Scroll brackets also decorate the cornice of the house's hip roof. The house's exterior windows are tall, narrow, and topped by arched brick lintels. The interior of the house features several rooms arranged around a central hallway and staircase; the rooms are decorated with oak trim, and the doors are topped with oak grilles. The Illinois Historic Structures Survey named the house as the best surviving example of the style in Kinmundy.

History
The house's first owner, Calendar Rohrbough, was born in Upshur County, Virginia and moved to Kinmundy in 1857. He served in the Civil War for the Union Army from 1862 to 1865, achieving the rank of captain as a member of the 118th Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment. After returning to Kinmundy, Rohrbough founded the Kinmundy First National Bank and the Kinmundy Savings and Loan Association. He was also active in politics and was elected mayor of Kinmundy before attempting a run for U.S. Congress in 1888. After Rohrbough's death, Fred O. Grissom purchased the house in 1925. Grissom also served as mayor of Kinmundy; in addition, he served as the city's postmaster for twenty-three years and as editor and publisher of the Kinmundy Express for eighteen. Grissom lived in the house until his death in 1978.

The house was added to the National Register of Historic Places on September 6, 1979.

Notes

Houses in Marion County, Illinois
National Register of Historic Places in Marion County, Illinois
Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Illinois
Italianate architecture in Illinois
Houses completed in 1875

Calendar Rohrbough House