The African Methodist Episcopal Church was founded by Black Methodists in Philadelphia who were pushed out of a segregated congregation.
Richard Allen and the Black Methodists of Philadelphia, pushed out of a segregated congregation, founded their own church, the first independent Black denomination in the United States. The AME Zion (1821) and CME (1870) churches followed.
The tree's references for this branch: Britannica: African Methodist Episcopal Church · AME Church: Our History · Wikipedia: African Methodist Episcopal Church.
Lineage: Israel and Judah: the First Temple›Second Temple Judaism›The early, undivided Church›Catholic Church›Church of England (Anglican)›Methodist›African Methodist Episcopal
The African Methodist Episcopal Church was started by Black Methodists in Philadelphia who were treated as unwelcome in their own congregation and left to build their own. It was the first independent Protestant denomination founded by Black people anywhere, and it split from other Methodists over how people were treated, not over doctrine.
Richard Allen, Absalom Jones and others founded the Free African Society in Philadelphia on 12 April 1787 as a mutual aid body 1,12. The church's own history tells what turned that society into a congregation: officials at St George's Methodist Episcopal Church pulled Black worshippers off their knees while they were praying, and those members discovered how far American Methodists would go to enforce discrimination against them. Most of the group went into the Protestant Episcopal Church with Jones. Allen led a smaller number who resolved to stay Methodist, and in 1794 Bethel was dedicated with Allen as its pastor 2,8,11.
Independence had to be won twice more, in court. Allen, born enslaved in Philadelphia and later taken to Delaware 20, sued successfully in the Pennsylvania courts in 1807 and again in 1815 for his congregation's right to exist as an institution white Methodists could not run 2. In 1816 ministers from five congregations, three around Philadelphia and one each in Delaware and Baltimore, met and organised themselves as the African Methodist Episcopal Church, and Allen was elected and ordained its first bishop 2,9,10. The church explains its own name: African because it was organised by people of African descent, not because it was founded in Africa or is only for them; Methodist for its doctrine and its order of worship; Episcopal for the bishops who govern it 3.
Independence cost them. Denmark Vesey, a free Black carpenter and a founder of the AME congregation at Charleston, was accused of plotting an uprising and hanged with others in 1822; the congregation's building was burned and African Methodism was driven out of South Carolina, meeting in secret until after the Civil War 16. The church that grew back on that site is Emanuel AME, and it is still there.
See it on the family treeDoctrinally the AME Church is Methodist and says so without qualification. Its own beliefs page states that it does not differ in any major way from what all Methodists believe, and that the break was caused not by doctrine but by a time of slavery, oppression and the dehumanising of people of African descent, practices that were carried into the church itself 4.
What it holds is set out in the Apostles' Creed and in the Articles of Religion that John Wesley sent to American Methodists, which the AME Church prints in its own Discipline: one God in three persons; the Son of one substance with the Father, made man and crucified to reconcile us; the Holy Ghost of one substance and glory with them; and Holy Scripture containing all things necessary to salvation, so that nothing which cannot be proved from it may be required of anyone as an article of faith 4.
Its motto is the shortest summary the church gives of itself: God Our Father, Christ Our Redeemer, the Holy Spirit Our Comforter, Humankind Our Family 4. Alongside the Wesleyan doctrine sits a body of AME thinking about race and Scripture. Bishop Benjamin Arnett told the 1893 World's Parliament of Religions that Black people were present at the formation of Christianity; Bishop Benjamin Tanner wrote in 1895 that scholars had wrongly painted Solomon as a white man; and James Cone, Cecil Cone and Jacquelyn Grant, who came out of this tradition, later pressed both European-centred Christianity and the Black churches themselves on racism, sexism and economic disadvantage 2.
Worship follows the Methodist order: hymns and singing, prayer, the reading of Scripture, a sermon that is expected to preach, and the Lord's Supper at set times rather than every week. The AME Church has its own hymnal and a long musical inheritance, and in most congregations the music is not a preliminary to the service but a substantial part of it.
Government is episcopal and connectional. Bishops are the chief executive and administrative officers, elected by the General Conference, which meets every four years and is the only body that can change the Discipline 3,5. Pastors are itinerant, appointed by the bishop of their district rather than called by the congregation. Below the General Conference sit annual conferences and, within each congregation, the class and the quarterly conference that Methodism has used since Wesley.
The AME Church holds, with the Articles of Religion, that Holy Scripture contains all things necessary to salvation, and that nothing which cannot be proved from it may be required of anyone as an article of faith 4. The King James Version was the Bible of this church for most of its history, and congregations now also read the New Revised Standard Version and the New International Version.
Certain passages have carried particular weight here because of what this church has had to answer. Acts 17:26, that God made of one blood all nations of men, was the standing reply to every scriptural defence of slavery and segregation. Psalm 68:31, that Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God, was read as a promise about Africa and about Black people everywhere, and it is the text behind the church's missions to Liberia, Sierra Leone and South Africa. The verses below are given in the King James Version, the wording in which generations of AME congregations learned them.
Free to read here: Berean Standard Bible, Free Bible Version, King James Version. The full note on which Bible African Methodist Episcopal Church use, with sources ›
These passages illustrate themes discussed in this profile; they are not a survey of members' favorite verses. Each is quoted from the King James (Authorized) Version and links to its chapter. You can explore the text for study or personal reflection; memorization is optional.
Princes shall come out of Egypt; Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God.
The verse that shaped Black Methodist mission, read as a promise about Africa and quoted constantly when the church crossed the Atlantic in the 1890s.
And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation;
Of one blood. The answer this church gave, from Scripture, to every scriptural defence of slavery and segregation.
There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.
Neither bond nor free. Preached from AME pulpits while slavery was still lawful in half the country.
But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.
Thirteen words about justice that have carried this church from the Underground Railroad to the civil rights movement.
Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. A congregation that had to sue twice for the right to govern itself heard that plainly.
The church reports its own reach rather than a membership roll: twenty episcopal districts in thirty-nine countries on five continents, administered by twenty-one active bishops and nine general officers who run the departments 2,7. Thirteen of the districts are in the United States, most of them in the South, and seven are in Africa; the global membership is generally given as about 2.5 million, a figure that comes from the church rather than from an independent count 9. It holds full communion with the United Methodist Church and with the other historically Black Methodist bodies, agreed in 2012 9.
It has always run schools. Wilberforce University in Ohio, founded in 1856 and bought by the AME Church in 1863, was among the first colleges owned and run by Black Americans, and the church still lists a set of colleges and seminaries among its institutions 18,19,6. Its congregations have been organising bodies as much as worshipping ones since the beginning, from the Underground Railroad through the conventions of the nineteenth century to the civil rights movement, and the church keeps a social action commission at the connectional level 1.
The church answers this itself. African means it was organised by people of African descent and heritage; it was not founded in Africa and is not only for people of African descent. Methodist places it in the family of Methodist churches, with their order of rules and their plain preaching. Episcopal describes the government: bishops are the chief executive and administrative officers of the denomination 3.
They are three separate denominations with similar origins. The AME Church was organised at Philadelphia in 1816 out of Richard Allen's Bethel congregation. The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church grew from a congregation in New York and organised in 1821. The Christian Methodist Episcopal Church was formed in 1870 by Black members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, with that church's agreement. All three are Wesleyan in doctrine, and since 2012 all are in full communion with each other and with the United Methodist Church 9.
No, and the church is emphatic about it. Its own beliefs page says the denomination does not differ in any major way from what all Methodists believe, and that the separation came from the treatment of people of African descent inside the church rather than from any disagreement about God 4. The Articles of Religion it uses are the ones Wesley sent to American Methodists.
Assigned. The AME Church keeps the Methodist itinerancy: a bishop appoints pastors to the churches in the district, and pastors can be moved. Congregations have real influence and the General Conference, which meets every four years, is made up of clergy and lay delegates, but a congregation does not call its own minister the way a Baptist church does 3,5.
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BibleVerse. “African Methodist Episcopal Church: where they came from, what they hold, and the Bible they read.” bibleverse.site, version 2026-09-09, https://bibleverse.site/denominations/ame/
Awaiting review by a member of the tradition. First published 2026-09-07; last changed 2026-09-09. Years before the common era are written BC, and later years plainly, as the site's Christian pages do.
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Fifteen words that a church founded by people pulled off their knees read as a promise, and then crossed an ocean to keep.
Princes shall come out of Egypt; Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God.