Jarena Lee, the daughter of former slaves, was born in Cape May, New Jersey. She is considered the first female preacher in the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church. Despite significant resistance due to her gender, Lee became a powerful and widely respected voice in the early 19th-century religious revival movement. In 1836, she published her autobiography, The Life and Religious Experience of Jarena Lee, a Coloured Lady, Giving an Account of Her Call to Preach the Gospel, making her one of the first African American women to publish a spiritual autobiography.
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