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 The AME Zion Church has a deep rooted and profound impact on not only Black History, but American History. Black members of
John Street Methodist Church in New York City could receive communion only after whites were finished. Black ministers were
not allowed to preach to white nor black members. Denial of religious liberty and discrimination caused outgrowth to happen.In
1796, James Varick, Abraham Thompson, William Millers, and others formed the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in New
York City. This newly founded church was a branch off of the Methodist Episcopal Church.
 The first church founded by the AME Zion Church was built in 1800 and was named Zion. By 1801, the group was incorporated
as the African Methodist Episcopal Church in New York. For the next two decades, they remained affiliated with the white-dominated
Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1820, however, the A.M.E. Zion leaders voted to leave the Methodist Episcopal Church, and they
published their first discipline, or rules and regulations for church practice. In 1848, "Zion" was added to the
name of the New York A.M.E. church to honor the name of their first church, as well as to distinguish this group from the
Philadelphians, whose first church was known as "Bethel."
 From its earliest beginnings, the AME Zion Church has been known for its spirit of reform and activism. In the 19th century,
the church was in the forefront of the antislavery movement. Several of the best-known black abolitionists, including Frederick
Douglass, Harriet Tubman, and Sojourner Truth, joined the AME Zion Church.AME Zion Bishop Alexander Walters, along with Dr.
W.E.B. DuBois, helped to found the NAACP. Many of the denomination's clergy and lay people were active participants in the
Civil Rights Movement of the '60s.
 Along with its emphasis on ministry and social change here in the United States, the denomination has focused much of its
attention and energies on outreach abroad. To date, the AME Zion Church has member churches on all continents except Australia.
In West Africa, in particular, the denomination has set up numerous schools and clinics throughout Ghana and Nigeria. Overseas
missions are a crucial component of the AME Zion Church's outreach.As the AME Zion Church continues to expand and diversify
its ministry;the church is also leading an ever increasing youthful church body into the next century. |
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