The Methodist Church was organized in America on December 24, 1784, and included blacks. Those as slaves came to worship with their owners but had to sit in the rear area of the church or the balconies.  Those who were "Free," came on their own free will.  They, too, had to sit in the balconies or the rear areas of the churches.

In 1796 a group of blacks left the St. John Street Methodist Episcopal Church in New York because they were very upset by the treatment received within the church.  They formed a new denomination, which was named the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church (AMEZ).

 Not until 1800 was a resolution passed that would permit black clergy to be ordained.  Ordination in our denomination means to be able to serve the people by serving a congregation as one of Jesus' disciples by giving communion, performing marriages, burying the dead and the like.

Still unhappy about their treatment in the Methodist Church, in 1816 some of the Negro members of the St. George Methodist Church in Philadelphia formed the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) with Richard Allen as its Bishop.

In 1868, those remaining colored or black preachers of the Methodist Church, after the exodus of some of the black preachers, expressed a need for an annual conference to develop their work among blacks.  So, in 1869, at the Kentucky Annual Conference, a new conference for blacks called the Lexington Conference was formed.