From Slave to Evangelist
Born a slave - Amanda Berry Smith grew up in Pennsylvania, where her father was able to buy the freedom of himself and most of his family. Smith was educated at home and later worked as a domestic servant. She married twice - her first husband was lost during the American Civil War and she later married again and moved to New York.
She came to know the Lord Jesus as her Saviour and found “the Joy of the Lord” in 1868 which led to her first hesitant attempts at preaching, and by 1869 her husband and her children had all died, and she found herself preaching regularly in African-American churches in New York and New Jersey.
Smith’s preaching success grew and in 1870 she fully committed herself to evangelism and travelled widely over the following eight years. In 1878 she sailed for England, where she spent a year evangelising at holiness meetings. From 1879 to 1881 she was in India, and after another brief stay in England, she sailed in 1881 for West Africa. For eight years she did missionary work in Liberia and Sierra Leone. Following another stay in Great Britain from 1889 to 1890, she returned to the United States and preached in eastern cities until 1892, when she moved to Chicago.
Though she found some success in the American Methodist Episcopal church and other African American churches, Smith soon came into her own as the darling of the white holiness camp – meeting circuit. White holiness believers heard God’s authority and love clearly in her preaching and singing. A real servant of the Lord.
For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps:
(1 Peter 2:21)