African Academy (Baltimore)

African Academy, the first permanent school in Baltimore, Maryland for African Americans. It was located at 112–116 Sharp Street, between Lombard and Pratt.[1][2]

There was an initial attempt to operate the African Academy beginning in 1797, when a group of black Methodists received support from the Maryland Society for the Abolition of Slavery,[3] specifically involving Elisha Tyson and his brother Jesse Tyson.[1] The school and meetinghouse was opened on what is now Saratoga Street (previously Fish Street), but after a few months they were forced to leave the building due to insufficient funds.[3] The meetinghouse congregation was affiliated with the Lovely Lane Meeting House until 1802.[2][4]

Having acquired sufficient funds, the African Methodist Episcopal Church and the African Academy were established on Sharp Street in 1802[3] by the Colored Methodist Society, at which time the congregation separated from the Lovely Lane Meeting House.[2][4] Daniel Coker, who was the school headmaster until 1817,[5] established the Bethel Charity School in 1807. It was sponsored by the Colored Methodist Society.[3] Children from Baltimore and Washington, D.C. attended the school.[4] In 1817, Coker became the pastor of the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church on Saratoga Street, east of Holliday Street, and operated the school at that location.[3] By the 1820s, there were 150 students in attendance.[4]

Daniel Coker, a founder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church,[2] was also the lead teacher of the congregation until 1817.[5] In 1860, a new church was built on the same site. A Gothic style church, named the Sharp Street Memorial United Methodist Church and Community House, was built on Dolphin and Etting Streets in 1898.[2]