The Bethel Literary and Historical Society was an organization founded in 1881 by African Methodist Episcopal Church

African Methodist Episcopal Church

The African Methodist Episcopal Church, usually called the A.M.E. Church, is a predominantly African American Methodist denomination based in the United States. It was founded by the Rev. Richard Allen in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1816 from several black Methodist congregations in the...

 Bishop Daniel Payne

Daniel Payne

Daniel Alexander Payne was an American bishop, educator, college administrator and author. He became a bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal Church and was a major shaper of it in the 19th century. He was one of the founders of Wilberforce University in Ohio...

 and continued at least until 1915. It represented a highly significant development in African American society in Washington DC. Most of its early members were members of the Metropolitan AME Church where its meetings were held, while maintaining an open invitation for black Washingtonians from across the city. It immediately developed into the preeminent debating society and forum for racial issues in Washington, D.C. The prospect of a separation of schools for black children was heatedly debated in 1881-2 as were the ideas of Booker T. Washington

Booker T. Washington

Booker Taliaferro Washington was an American educator, author, orator, and political leader. He was the dominant figure in the African-American community in the United States from 1890 to 1915...

 and W. E. B. Du Bois in 1903. It was one of the stops of `Abdu'l-Bahá's journeys to the West

`Abdu'l-Bahá's journeys to the West

`Abdu'l-Bahá's journeys to the West were a series of trips `Abdu'l-Bahá undertook starting at the age of 67 from Palestine to the West from 1910 to 1913. `Abdu'l-Bahá was imprisoned at the age of 8 and suffered various degrees of privation most of his life...

.

The society's presentations attracted a wide swath of speakers: Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass was an American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman. After escaping from slavery, he became a leader of the abolitionist movement, gaining note for his dazzling oratory and incisive antislavery writing...

 ("The Philosophy and History of Reform"), Mary Ann Shadd

Mary Ann Shadd

Mary Ann Shadd Cary was born to Abraham and Harriett Shadd, both free-born blacks, in Wilmington, Delaware. She was the oldest in her family of 13 children...

 ("Heroes of the Anti-Slavery Struggles"), Mary Church Terrell

Mary Church Terrell

Mary Church Terrell , daughter of former slaves, was one of the first African-American women to earn a college degree. She became an activist who led several important associations and worked for civil rights and suffrage....

 ("A Glimpse of Europe"), Belva Ann Lockwood

Belva Ann Lockwood

Belva Ann Bennett Lockwood was an American attorney, politician, educator, and author. She was active in working for women's rights, although the term feminist was not in use. The press of her day referred to her as a "suffragist," someone who believed in women's suffrage or voting rights...

 ("Is Marriage a Failure?"), John Mercer Langston

John Mercer Langston

John Mercer Langston was an American abolitionist, attorney, educator, and political activist. He was the first dean of the law school at Howard University and helped create the department. He was the first president of what is now Virginia State University. In 1888 he was the first African...

 ("The Emancipated Races of Latin America"), Kelly Miller

Kelly Miller (scientist)

Kelly Miller was an African American mathematician, sociologist, essayist, newspaper columnist, author, and an important figure in the intellectual life of black America for close to half a century.-Career:...

 ("Higher Education"), Ida B. Wells

Ida B. Wells

Ida Bell Wells-Barnett was an African American journalist, newspaper editor and, with her husband, newspaper owner Ferdinand L. Barnett, an early leader in the civil rights movement. She documented lynching in the United States, showing how it was often a way to control or punish blacks who...

 ( "Southern Outrages"), Archibald Grimké

Archibald Grimke

Archibald Henry Grimké was an American lawyer, intellectual, journalist, diplomat and community leader in the 19th and early 20th century...

 ("Modern Industrialism and the Negro in the United States").

While several records of the organization are not preserved, among the presidents of the society listed in various sources are:

• William H. Richards
• Mary Church Terrell
  Mary Church Terrell
  Mary Church Terrell , daughter of former slaves, was one of the first African-American women to earn a college degree. She became an activist who led several important associations and worked for civil rights and suffrage....
  
   (1892, its only woman president)
• Louis George Gregory
  Louis George Gregory
  Louis George Gregory was a prominent member of the Bahá'í Faith. In 1951 he was posthumously appointed a Hand of the Cause, the highest appointed position in the Bahá'í Faith, by Shoghi Effendi.-Early years:He was born on June 6, 1874 to African-American parents liberated during the Civil War...
  
  

In various references it is also called Bethel Historical and Literary Society, Bethel Literary. There were also sister organizations with the same name, for example in Philadelphia.