Warner, Andrew Jackson
(born: March 4, 1850 - died: May 31, 1920)Born in Washington, KY, Andrew Warner was the son of freeman Rueben Warner and Emily Warner, who was enslaved. Andrew was also enslaved; he escaped to Ripley, OH at the age of 13 and enlisted in the Union Army as a drummer boy. He received an honorable discharge and later became a student at Wilberforce College [now Wilberforce University].
Warner went on to study law and became the leading attorney in the Bishop Hillery case [within the Kentucky Conference] in Hendersonville, KY. He became Bishop of the A. M. E. Zion Church in Philadelphia, PA, in 1908. The Warner Temple A.M.E. Zion Church in Wilmington, NC, was named in his honor.
Warner had been a candidate for the U.S. Congress from the 1st District of Alabama in 1890, a delegate-at-large to the Republican National Convention in St. Louis, MO, in 1896, and a nominee for Governor of Alabama in 1898.
Warner died in Charlotte, NC on May 31, 1920 [source: North Carolina Death Certificate, Register #346].
For more see Who's Who of the Colored Race, 1915; Rev. Andrew J. Warner, D.D. in One Hundred Years of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church..., by J. W. Hood [full text available at the UNC Documenting the American South website]; Andrew Jackson Warner in History of the American Negro, North Carolina Edition (vol. 4) by A. B. Caldwell [available full text at Google Books]; and Robert J. Booker, "Warner important figure in A.M.E. Zion Church," 5/15/2017, at the Knox News website.