By Zenitha Prince

Washington Bureau Chief

ST. LOUIS, MO. (July 7, 2008) — Cheered on by her team, the little girl flipped across the floor before descending into a full length split. And that was only the opening act.

From now until Thursday, when delegates to the 48^th Quadrennial Session of the General Conference of the African Methodist Episcopal Church elect its top tier officers, The America Center will become a showplace as supporters seek to persuade delegates that their candidate is best.

The A.M.E. Church is among few religious bodies that allow campaigning on its elections site, making their conferences roiling hotbeds of political crusading. And with 28 candidates running for bishop, the highest office of the church, this conference promises to be a madhouse. But it’s an insanity people seem to embrace.

“I love the campaigning; I enjoy it,” said Eunice Brown, an observer from Georgetown, S.C.

Brown said when you first experience the heavy politicking at the conference it can be a bit startling, something with which her companion Rosa Wigfall, a conference first-timer, agreed.

Although she was enjoying her experience, she felt like the elections “overwhelmed” other aspects of the conference, she said.

“It’s different than I thought it would be. I didn’t know it would be so political,” she said. “I thought it would be more spiritual and it seems like a regular campaign.”

Like regular campaigns, delegates are bombarded with messages even before they enter the convention center. A mammoth image of bishop candidate the Rev. Dr. John F. Whites of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., smiled down at pedestrians from the side of a lumbering truck.

And then they get inside and are immediately thrown into the maelstrom. Campaigners line the corridor leading to the main meeting hall, forcing delegates to walk the gauntlet of placards; the chatter of voices raised in song and chants and the sheer number of bodies that press against them from every side.

Here the walk begins with the little girl and a band of other children and teens wearing white and blue shirts and holding pom-poms, extolling the virtues of the Rev. Reginald T. Jackson, pastor of St. Matthews AME Church in Orange, N.J.

“When I say action, you say Jackson, action (Jackson!), action (Jackson!). When I say bishop you say Jackson, bishop (Jackson!), bishop (Jackson!),” Washingtonia Georges, 18, calls out to the crew before they launch into a coordinated hand-clapping, foot-stomping step routine.

“For all these weeks of practicing and cheering until we lost our voices we really want to bring back a bishop,” Georges said, then added, “He’s a great pastor; he really cares about the kids. He talks to us, takes us out, pays for whatever we need….and he really cares about our community…he works for us. He’s on the school board and he walks around the school talking to kids…he knows all of us by name.”

Then there’s a group bearing placards for Washington, D.C.-based the Rev. Ronald Eugene Braxton, who apparently commissioned locals to man his campaign.

“He came to the senior center where my grandparents are and they signed on and that’s how I found out about him,” said campaigner 19-year-old Darlene Watts, who is Baptist.

Based on an idea from the candidate himself, the group distributed to delegates care packages filled with crackers, cookies, bottled water, tissues and hand sanitizers.

Move on past a choral dressed in all white, commending their candidate in three-part harmony; a few anemic contingents that appear beaten down into submissive silence by the sheer numbers of their opponents and you come to a small but lively group, dressed in matching black-and-silver, ethnic-looking tunics, singing in the Afrikaans language and moving in a slightly elemental dance. They are A.M.E. members from Capetown, South Africa, who came to support the candidacy of the Rev. Andrew Benjamin Gandhi Lewin.

“He is a builder; an honest man, full of integrity; he is a servant of the Lord and loves his church,” said supporter Donald Sauls in heavily accented English.

A golf cart stops, the driver blows its horn to warn enthusiastic campaigners out the way and it crawls by, bearing the logo—a big stylized ‘W’ intertwined with a smaller ‘S’ and ‘J’—and flyers of the Rev.  Stafford Wicker of Stone Mountain, Ga. Inside the exhibition hall, which is filled with vending and display stalls, Wicker’s booth is equally impressive. A custom, red-white-and-black carpet with a huge “Wicker” inlaid welcomes the visitor into a mock room, with walls bearing plaques, newspaper articles and other memorabilia from the minister’s life of service; niches filled with scarlet flowers; desktops neatly covered in campaign literature and a flat screen television running a loop of interviews, testimonials and photos attesting to Wicker’s worthiness for the episcopacy.

Other candidates took a more low-key tact. Campaign workers for the Rev. Wayne Anthony of Trinidad and Tobago—16^th District—handed out simply-decorated post cards bearing one singular message—inclusion.

“It’s been 36 years since the 16^th District has had its own bishop. So if not now, when?” said the Rev. Stella Stocker. “We are an inclusive church so we should be able to recognize the need.”

On a small stage in the back of the room, members of the St. Louis Black Repertory Company, dressed in 18^th century costumes, sang songs like “The Lord’s Prayer,” “Go Down Moses,” and a campaign-geared song, created for their sponsor, the Rev. Mark Kelly Tyler, Ph.D, who is running for the position of historiographer.

The hall is filled with many such displays, with balloons, bells, whistles—anything that would peak delegates’ interest.

District 6 delegate David Anderson said all the trappings don’t have much of an effect, affecting about 20 percent of the vote.

“I know who I’m going to vote for by the time I get here,” he said. “Most people are going to give at least one of their votes to someone from their district.”

How they use their other two votes, however, could be influenced by the more long-term lobbying efforts undertaken by the candidates.

 “When a person actually travels around to different states, people will see that they really want it because they’re spending money and time presenting themselves and their worthiness,” he said.

The odds don’t dampen the energy of the campaigners on the ground, however.

“It’s wonderful,” said Shelley Harris of New Jersey between chants of the campaign. “I’m having the time of my life.”

For the full AFRO AME General Conference Coverage CLICK HERE