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Bishop H. Hartford Brookins

*According to a press release sent to EURweb from First AME Church, Bishop Hamel Hartford Brookins has gone on to be with his heavenly father.

Bishop Brookins died Tuesday, May 22 at noon in Los Angeles.  Bishop  Brookins  was  born  in  Yazoo  City,  Mississippi.  He   received   a Bachelor  of  Arts  degree  from  Wilberforce  University  in  Ohio  and  a  Bachelor  of Divinity degree from Payne Seminary.  Prior to his election as a bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, Bishop Brookins served as the pastor of  First AME Church of Los Angeles, California leading the congregation through the building of a multi-­‐million dollar cathedral at its present location on Harvard  Boulevard  in  Los Angeles.

In  2002  Former  President  Bill  Clinton  joined  a  host  of  religious  luminaries,  elected officials and celebrities in a tribute to Bishop Hamel Hartford Brookins, the son of Mississippi sharecroppers who rose to become a Los Angeles and international champion of black political empowerment. Clinton praised Brookins, for his civil rights legacy and reminisced about the days when the clergyman ministered in a country church in Arkansas when Clinton was governor.

“I still can’t quite get used to the fact that you’re wearing purple,” he said at the Beverly Hilton event, referring to Brookins’ status as a bishop. “And I got to be president,” he added.”I learned a lot by your side, had a lot of good times. But my heart will always be with you, because in sunshine and in rain, you were always with me,” the former president said. “You helped me make the country a more free, better and united place.”

Brookins, a bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal church for 30 years, is best known here as the former leader of First AME Church, which he served 13 years. His activism began in the 1950s when, as a clergyman in Topeka, Kan., he helped implement a desegregation plan ordered by the U.S. Supreme Court in the groundbreaking Brown vs. Board of Education case. In 1965 he worked to quell the Watts riots. He was an architect of Tom Bradley’s campaigns for Los Angeles mayor and, while working in Africa, was ousted from Rhodesia because of his work on behalf of the Zimbabwe liberation movement. In 1981 Zimbabwe invited him back for  its  first  presidential  inauguration.  A  founding  member  of  Jesse  Jackson’s economic activist organization, Operation PUSH, Brookins also worked in Jackson’s presidential campaigns. He developed a friendship with Clinton while assigned to his  denomination’s  Oklahoma-­‐Arkansas  district  in  the  ’80s,  when  Clinton   was governor. Brookins is credited with laying the foundation for First AME Church of Los Angeles political power and community and international influence which continues to serve the preeminent mega-­‐church today. In a prepared statement, his wife, the Rev. Rosalynn Kyle Brookins, pastor of Walker Temple AME Church in Los Angeles, said that the services for her husband would be a reflection of his life and service to the world. Together they have one son, Sir-­‐Wellington Hartford Brookins and two step children, Mr. Steven Hartford Brookins and Rev. Francine A. Brookins. His family and numerous friends were at his bedside when he died.

Funeral arrangements are being finalized.   Information  will  be provided  via  First AME Church of Los Angeles. Visit www.famechurch.org.

First African Methodist  Episcopal Church, Los  Angeles  is the  oldest  church founded by African Americans in the City of Angels. In 1872 Ms. Biddy Mason received the vision from God to establish a church that would minister to the mind, body and soul of all who would join that small band of believers. That vision and small band of believers has grown to what is now a congregation of more than 19,000 members  and several  dozen ministries  within 13 corporations  that bless  and reach tens  of thousands  of seekers in greater metropolitan Los Angeles.

source:
Michael Ellison Lewis
ellisonlewis@famechurch.org
www.famechurch.org

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