Black Church Marks 200 Years
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PHILADELPHIA — The nation’s oldest black Christian denomination--the African Methodist Episcopal Church--has launched a year-long observance of its 200th anniversary.
The denomination, which now has 1.8 million members, was founded in 1787 when Richard Allen, a former slave, and associates walked out of the predominantly white St. George’s Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia to protest segregation.
That was “the genesis of African Methodism,” said Bishop Vinton Anderson, head of the church’s bicentennial committee. “It started as a rebellion against segregation in God’s house.”
A fund drive was started for restoring the denomination’s first structure, Mother Bethel Church here, designated a U.S. landmark.
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