The history of Evans Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church

Henry Evans, a black man, built the first church in Fayetteville, North Carolina for both races. He preached the gospel to a town that was being built on the backs of slaves. There is little doubt that a full history of Evans Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church will ever be told for sealed eternally are the lips of her early leaders. They dreamed large dreams and dared to attain them. Their drumming feet by day and night echoed more than casual ideologies for they brought to Methodism and the Protestant world of America an early battle of human rights and privileges. They showed amazing desire to widen the horizon of individuals living beyond freedom of body to freedom of will and expression. The black community grew out of a mixture of freemen and slaves. The Lomax, Harris, Chesnutt, and Leary families who populated the area prior to and after the Civil War, played a significant role in the daily life of the city.