Black Methodism in the United States is the Methodist tradition within the Black Church, largely consisting of congregations in the African Methodist Episcopal (AME), African Methodist Episcopal Zion (AME Zion or AMEZ), Christian Methodist Episcopal denominations, as well as those African American congregations in other Methodist denominations, such as the Free Methodist Church.
African Americans were drawn to Methodism due to the father of Methodism, John Wesley's "opposition to the whole system of slavery, his commitment to Jesus Christ, and the evangelical appeal to the suffering and the oppressed."[1]
The African Methodist Episcopal Zion church evolved as a division within the Methodist Episcopal Church denomination. The first AME Zion church was founded in 1800. Like the AME Church, the AME Zion Church sent missionaries to Africa in the first decade after the American Civil War and it also has a continuing overseas presence.
The African Methodist Episcopal Church was founded by Richard Allen in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1816, and also split from the white-dominated Methodist Episcopal Church denomination to make an independent denomination. Sarah Allen was known as its "founding mother". It is based in the United States but seven of its 20 districts are overseas, including in Liberia, the United Kingdom, Angola, and South Africa.[2] Its Women's Missionary Service, an NGO, operates in 32 countries.[3]
See main article: Christian Methodist Episcopal Church.
In the Free Methodist Church, African Heritage Network convenes to encourage black congregations and clergy within the denomination.[4]
Both the AME and the AMEZ churches have entered in full communion with one another and with the United Methodist Church, the African Union Methodist Protestant Church, the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, and the Union American Methodist Episcopal Church.