African Methodist Episcopal Church

The African Methodist Episcopal Church is the largest black religious denomination in the United States. It was established in 1816 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, by people of African ancestry. The denomination's name clearly indicates the significant contributions of African Americans to emerging Christianity in North America. The formation of the AME Church marks one of the earliest expressions of black religious independence in antebellum America.

The denomination had its beginning in the mutual aid society and antislavery association called Free African Society (FAS), which Richard Allen, Absalom Jones, and others founded in Philadelphia in 1787. These African societies [Page 149]functioned at the time as quasi-religious institutions that helped fulfill the socioeconomic, cultural, spiritual, and material needs of the African American population in urban Philadelphia and its surroundings.

Generally, historians and scholars of black religion have noted several principal historical forces that stimulated the assertion of black religious independence. These include the long narrative of racial segregation and discrimination in white churches during and after slavery, the moral failure of Christianity in the United States, and the desire for black Christians to gather in free, autonomous worship using the African American tradition and cultural practices within the context of the black church.

The genesis of the AME Church can be traced to a day in November 1787, when Richard Allen and other black Methodists at the predominantly white St. George's Methodist Episcopal Church (MEC) in Philadelphia took a decisive step to no longer tolerate racial segregation and discrimination in the church. Allen, Jones, and other black Christians had attended a public worship service at St. George's MEC, and as they knelt in prayer in a gallery that was reserved for whites only, some trustees forced them to abruptly leave the church. As Allen recounts:

The ousted blacks were determined to reshape FAS as an exclusively African congregation. Most wanted to align themselves with the Episcopal Church, but a small group that included Allen pushed to remain Methodist. In 1794, Bethel AME, with Allen as pastor, came into being. Bethel later was a well-known station of the Underground Railroad. Allen successfully sued in Pennsylvania courts in 1807 and 1815 so that Bethel AME could operate independently of white Methodists.

The AME Church came into existence as a reaction to white hostility against blacks in church. It is good to note here that many slaves joined the Wesleyan movement because of its antislavery sensibility, and the Methodist Church was probably the first to license black preachers.