Christian Methodist Episcopal Church

Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, Black Methodist church in the United States. Founded in 1870 by 41 formerly enslaved African Americans as the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church, it officially adopted its present name in 1956. The church originated from a movement begun in 1866 within the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, to organize the Black members into an independent church. At the founding convention in 1870, two bishops from the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, consecrated two Black elders as the first bishops of the new church.

The church is Methodist in government and doctrine. A general conference is held every four years. The church is organized into 11 episcopal districts, nine of which are in the United States and two of which are in Africa. In 2012 the church and four other Black Methodist churches—the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the African Union Methodist Protestant Church, the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, and the Union American Methodist Episcopal Church—entered into full communion with each other and with the predominantly white United Methodist Church. In the 2020s the church claimed more than 1.2 million members. Its headquarters are in Memphis, Tennessee.