Pictured to the right is a bronze statue of our founder Bishop Richard Allen. The statue was erected in July 2016 on the grounds of Mother Bethel African Episcopal Church, Philadelphia, PA, commemorating our bicentennial celebration.
Our Beginning:
During a Sunday morning worship service in 1787, white officials at St. George’s Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia interrupted black worshipers while praying to pull them off their knees, and ordering them to take seats in the balcony. Richard Allen and others refused to be treated like slaves and outcasts led the black parishioners out of the church and formed a group called the Free African Society.
Richard Allen and the band of free Africans used this protest movement against racial injustice in the house of God to launch an international racial and social spiritual awakening. In 1794 Richard Allen and his followers erected a church house called Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church with Allen as pastor. Black Methodists in other middle Atlantic communities who encountered racism heard of Allen's work and desired religious autonomy for themselves. Allen called them to meet in Philadelphia to form a new Wesleyan denomination, the African Methodist Episcopal Church.
The geographical spread of the AME Church prior to the Civil War was mainly restricted to the Northeast and Midwest. Major congregations were established in Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Washington, DC, Cincinnati, Chicago, Detroit, and other large Blacksmith’s Shop cities. Numerous northern communities also gained a substantial AME presence. The slave states of Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, Louisiana, and, South Carolina became additional locations for AME congregations.
The denomination reached the Pacific Coast in the early 1850s with churches in Stockton, Sacramento, San Francisco, and other places in California. Bishop Morris Brown established the Canada Annual Conference. Today, the African Methodist Episcopal Church has membership in twenty Episcopal Districts in thirty-nine countries on five continents. The work of the Church is administered by twenty-one active bishops and nine General Officers who manage the departments of the Church.
The Midlands District of the Seventh Episcopal District of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME Church) belongs to the African Methodist Episcopal Church family.
For an extended account of AME Church's history see Dennis C. Dickerson's work. www.ame-church.com
