Origin from 1816
On 9 April 1816, sixteen delegates representing Black Methodist congregations from Philadelphia, Baltimore, and further afield met at Philadelphia's Bethel Church, the congregation Richard Allen had founded in 1794 after white members forcibly pulled him from his knees during prayer at St. George's Methodist Episcopal Church, and organized themselves into a wholly independent denomination, the African Methodist Episcopal Church, decades after the Christmas Conference had organized American Methodism itself at Baltimore in 1784, already recorded here. Two days later, on 11 April 1816, the assembled ministers consecrated Allen as the new church's first bishop. The AME Church kept Methodist doctrine, worship, and the Discipline largely intact while placing every level of governance in Black hands, and it grew from its founding congregations to more than seven thousand members within six years, spreading north and west well before the wider Methodist Episcopal Church split over slavery in 1844, already recorded here.
Facts
Dates
StatusEstablished marks the African Methodist Episcopal Church's founding at Philadelphia in 1816 as an independent Black Methodist denomination, a specific dated milestone between the Christmas Conference organizing American Methodism in 1784 already recorded here and the wider Methodist Episcopal Church's 1844 split over slavery also already recorded here. Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
This source names African Methodist Episcopal Church directly: "a wholly independent denomination, the African Methodist Episcopal Church, decades after the Christmas Conference had organized American Methodism itself at Baltimore in 1784, already recorded here."
This source names Richard Allen directly: "Bethel Church, the congregation Richard Allen had founded in 1794 after white members forcibly pulled him from his knees during prayer at St."
Occurred In
Spread Event Of
Adds a specific, dated milestone in American Methodism's institutional history between the Christmas Conference organizing the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1784 and its own 1844 split over slavery, both already recorded here: Richard Allen and sixteen delegates organizing the African Methodist Episcopal Church at Philadelphia in 1816, the first fully independent Black denomination in the United States.
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