1794; AME denomination organized 1816
Religious organizing / resistanceSupplement
Richard Allen establishes Bethel and fights white church control
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Richard Allen and Black congregants established Bethel in Philadelphia amid discrimination in white Methodist institutions. Their struggle for religious independence helped lead to the African Methodist Episcopal denomination in 1816.
Dates preserve the source’s precision. This entry is part of a selected historical record; its qualifications and sources are retained below.
Context / qualification
1794 marks Bethel’s founding, not the organization of the entire AME denomination. Black self-governance should not be equated with the later court doctrine of “separate but equal.”