Founded in 1816 by Bishop Richard Allen after he led a walkout from Philadelphia's racially segregated St. George's Methodist Church, the AME Church became the first fully independent Black denomination in the United States. Its founding linked spiritual liberation to civil rights from the very beginning. The denomination grew to over 2.5 million members worldwide and played central roles in the Abolitionist movement, Reconstruction-era politics, and 20th-century civil rights organizing. Allen's own church, Mother Bethel AME in Philadelphia, still stands as the oldest property continuously owned by Black Americans.