Charles Spencer Smith (1852–1923) was a Methodist minister and afterwards bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church as well as an Alabama state legislator. He wrote numerous pamphlets during his lifetime, as well as a history of the AME Church and Glimpses of Africa (1895) chronicling his 1894 trip to the African continent. Born and raised in Canada, Smith moved to the United States at age fourteen and after a series of jobs and two years in the Alabama Legislature, he became an ordained minister, pastoring in several southern states before being assigned to the Chicago Conference of the AME Church. Exposed to the work of the Sunday School Union there, he proposed that a similar organization be established for the AME Church. He founded the organization and the first publishing house in the country owned by a person of African descent using steam presses. After his appointment as Bishop, Smith traveled widely and was assigned conferences in Canada, the Caribbean, Africa, and several in the United States. Upon retiring from conference work, he became the historian of the AME Church and wrote at least two books. Source: Wikipedia (en)