Reenactment event to recall founding of central NJ Mt. Zion AME Church
This weekend, the Stoutsburg Sourland African American Museum (SSAAM) will be presenting a Camp Meeting Reenactment to commemorate the 125th anniversary of the founding of Mt. Zion AME Church in Somerset County, New Jersey.
The reenactment takes place this Saturday, Oct. 12, from 12-4 p.m. at Mt. Zion AME Church, located at 189 Hollow Road in Skillman, New Jersey.
Camp meetings, which are usually spiritually focused, are events where people come together for worship and to take part in family and cultural activities. This weekend’s event will feature a 16-person, all African American choral ensemble gospel choir but won’t solely focus on religion. SSAAM is presenting the camp reenactment because the museum is itself situated inside the former church. Built in 1899, the Mt. Zion AME was a small, rural church that served as an active congregation up until 2005.
“Historically, the church that now houses the museum, Mount Zion AME, hosted annual camp meetings in Stillman from the 1800s to around 1930 when the tradition kind of died out,” explains Dr. Isabela Morales, SSAAM’s education and exhibit manager. “Camp meetings were historically religious services, but also social gatherings. And we have oral history documentation that these were the biggest social events of the year.
“Because the area was so rural, with a lot of farmers and families that lived up on the mountain, they didn’t go to church on a regular weekly basis. This was a time when both Black and white members of the community came together and kind of saw each other and came in fellowship and friendship, in a large-scale capacity, which didn’t happen throughout the rest of the year.”
SSAAM’s research of the area’s oral histories found that the original camp meetings featured a popular song that was regularly performed at the camp meetings. “‘They stole my mother away,’ was sung by Manning George Blackwell, who is a descendant of enslaved people in New Jersey,” Dr. Morales told the AmNews. “The spiritual came from the time of slavery and kind of discusses the experiences of African American during slavery. In the oral histories, people talk about this song and how everyone wanted to hear it, and it brought the most money into the collection site for the entire day. They remembered bits and pieces of verses, but not the entire song and not the full melody. We’re working with an ethnomusicologist at Rider University to kind of recreate that song and we are going to have a soloist perform that song for the first time in 100 years at the camp meeting.”
The camp meeting will also feature historical reenactors portraying key people who played a role in the establishment of Mount Zion AME’s history. The actress Leslie Bramlett will be present to portray Corinda True, a very devout member of the church whose family donated a portion of their five-acre plot of land so that the church would have a foundation to build on. Another actress will be present to discuss the life of Sylvia Dubois, who was born enslaved in New Jersey and lived to be nearly 122 years old. The camp meeting is also set to feature reenactors portraying members of the 6th Regiment United States Colored Infantry, African American soldiers who fought with the Union during the Civil War. Union Army veterans were an integral part of Mt. Zion AME’s congregation.
With this year marking the 125th anniversary of when Mt. Zion AME was built, SSAAM has put together several programs to celebrate the church and promote educational programs for the community. For more information, visit www.ssaamuseum.org.
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