Talk:African Union Methodist Protestant Church

Oldest Black Denomination
How is AUMP the oldest when the AME Church was first established in 1787? CJ 02:54, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

The AME Church was founded in 1816. AME Bishop Richard Allen's church (now known as Mother Bethel) was originally founded under the auspices of the white Methodist Church in 1784. There were a number of small independent black Methodist groups before 1816. The debate as to which modern denomination is the "oldest" is probably a matter of semantics.