Question: Thomas James (1804–1891) was a former slave who became an African Methodist Episcopal Zion minister, abolitionist, administrator and author, and served with which Protestant-based abolitionist group founded on September 3, 1846 in Albany, New York?

<P0-S0> Hood African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church founded in 1848 is an historic African Methodist Episcopal Zion church located in Oyster Bay, New York. <P0-S1>  It is the oldest continuous congregation holding services in its original church structure in Oyster Bay. <P0-S2>  A small wood frame building was constructed on this site in 1856. <P0-S3>  Later the church was renamed to honor an early bishop, the Right Reverend James Walker Hood. <P0-S4>  In 1937, the wooden church was covered with the brick exterior you see today. <P0-S5>  From 1937 to 1963 the pastor was Reverend Moses T. Smith. <P0-S6>  Today the congregation is led by Reverend Kenneth Nelson, who came to the Hood AME Zion Church in 1981. <P0-S7>  Reverend Kenneth Nelson retired in June, 2013 and the Reverend Linda B. Vanager was appointed to the Pastoral charge. <SEP> <P1-S0> The American Missionary Association (AMA) was a Protestant-based abolitionist group founded on September 3, 1846 in Albany, New York. <P1-S1>  The main purpose of this organization was to abolish slavery, to educate African Americans, to promote racial equality, and to promote Christian values. <P1-S2>  Its members and leaders were of both races; The Association was chiefly sponsored by the Congregationalist churches in New England. <P1-S3>  Starting in 1861, it opened camps in the South for freed slaves. <P1-S4>  It played a major role during the Reconstruction Era in promoting education for blacks in the South. <SEP> <P2-S0> Connexionalism, or connectionalism, is the theological understanding and foundation of Methodist church governance ("ecclesiastical polity"), as practised in the Methodist Church of Great Britain, the Methodist Church in Ireland, the American United Methodist Church, African Methodist Episcopal Church, African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, Christian Methodist Episcopal Church and many of the countries where Methodism was established by missionaries sent out from these Churches. <P2-S1>  In the American church, where bishops provide church leadership, connexionalism is a variety of episcopal polity; however, in some countries the title of bishop may be used without any change in the Connexional polity. <P2-S2>  In world Methodism, a given Connexion is usually autonomous. <SEP> <P3-S0> Thomas James (1804–1891) was a former slave who became an African Methodist Episcopal Zion minister, abolitionist, administrator and author. <P3-S1>  He was active in New York and Massachusetts with abolitionists, and served with the American Missionary Association and the Union Army during the American Civil War to supervise the contraband camp in Louisville, Kentucky. <P3-S2>  After the war, he held national offices in the AME Church and was a missionary to black churches in Ohio. <P3-S3>  While in Massachusetts, he challenged the railroad's custom of forcing blacks into second-class carriages and won a reversal of the rule in the State Supreme Court. <P3-S4>  He wrote a short memoir published in 1886.