Abstract
The political history of abolition is impossible to write without a thorough understanding of Black churches. Reading LaRoche's book clarifies how standardization happened within Black communities, as she describes AME mentors smoothing the "rough edges" of southern-born preacher Henry McNeal Turner, who became an AME bishop in 1880 (p. 127). LaRoche's contribution will serve both AME members seeking to know more about their denomination's history and researchers of nineteenth-century America needing a stronger grasp on how Black churches became central to abolition.