Home    Ministries    Events    Our Pastor    Contact

African Methodist Episcopal History and Heritage                    

The African Methodist Episcopal Church has origins that began with the Methodist Church, which was founded by John Wesley. The Methodist movement began in England and the Americas in the eighteenth century. By 1784, the Methodist Church was officially established. “In 1786 Richard Allen, (founder of the A.M.E. Church) began preaching in St. George’s Methodist Episcopal Church, a Philadelphia congregation where both whites and blacks worshipped.”¹

 “Allen was a former slave from Delaware who joined the Evangelical Wesleyan movement because of its work against slavery and he eventually became a licensed Methodist Preacher.”² Richard Allen and Absalom Jones (an African American Lay Preacher) through their works began to increase the number of black church members.In 1787, the increasing congregation caused the need for an expansion of St. George’s Methodist Episcopal Church; therefore a balcony was built to accommodate everyone.

 Allen, Jones and other black worshippers where directed to sit, unknowingly in a white section of the new balcony. “During a prayer, a white trustee told Jones to move immediately to the rear of the balcony.”³ Jones, Allen and others were not allowed to finish their prayer, from that incident they decided to walk out and leave St. George’s Church permanently.



 “In 1794 Allen purchased a blacksmith’s shop and converted it into a storefront Church. Methodist Bishop Frances Asbury named it Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church.”⁴ 1816 was the year that the African Methodist Episcopal Church broke away and gained its Independence from the Methodist Church. That same year Richard Allen became the first A.M.E. Bishop.


 The A.M.E. Church has a rich history in politics, education and business. The Free African Society was established to address and correct the problem of slavery in America. “A.M.E. Clergy ran for and won numerous political offices in the south during the reconstruction era.”⁵ The A.M.E. were active in the Civil Rights Movement, A.M.E. pastors filed law suites that led to the Brown vs. Board of Education Trial. In 1863 Bishop Daniel Alexander Payne helped establish Wilberforce University, the first in a long line of A.M.E. established colleges.

Although, women in the A.M.E. Church did not become ordained until 1960, Women have always played an important role in the A.M.E. Church, as advisors and church activists. One of Richard Allen’s advisors; beginning in 1819 was a woman named Jarena Lee.

Today, the A.M.E. Church has congregations in “Cuba, Mexico, Jamaica, Guyana, Haiti, The Dominican Republic, Suriname, The Virgin Islands, The Windward Islands, Canada, England and Twenty African Countries.”⁶

Reference source
"African Methodist Episcopal Church",Microsoft® Encarta® Africana Third Edition. © 1998-2000 Microsoft Corporation