Christians in History:
Amanda Berry Smith (1837-1915)
The Unexpected Missionary
Who Redefined Evangelism
Amanda was born into slavery in 1837, in Long Green, Maryland. She was the firstborn of 13 children born to Samuel and Mariam Berry, who were faithful followers of Jesus, discipling their children from the beginning by reading their Bible. When she attended a tent revival meeting at age 17, she truly began to follow Jesus, not just her parents’ faith. She grew to be active in the Holiness movement, which urged all believers to share their faith publicly regardless of their situation, status, or color.
Amanda became a widow two times over and her grief pushed her to start attending revival tent meetings to find comfort. By the 1870s, Amanda could no longer keep herself from ignoring the multiple calls upon her life, and she soon found herself preaching and singing on stage at those same tent meetings in New York and New Jersey, both to black and white audiences.
In 1872, God opened Amanda’s eyes to the need overseas, but she continued to preach at Holiness meetings stateside. By 1878, Amanda Berry Smith sailed for England, spending a year in the U.K. evangelizing those who came to the meetings. From 1879 to 1881, she traveled and spoke in India, sailing for West Africa in 1881, where she spent the next eight years doing missionary work in Liberia and Sierra Leone. Today, she’s celebrated as the first Black woman to work as an international evangelist.
When she returned to the States, she began to pursue her dream of educating African American children. In 1899, she founded an orphanage in Illinois. The 12-room brick house that served as the Home opened its doors to homeless African American girls and was the first of its kind, challenging the idea that evangelism was just about words. She lived out a radical, action-based faith in an era that would have expected her to stay silent.