The African Methodist Episcopal Church, usually called the A.M.E. Church or AME, is a predominantly African-American Methodist denomination. It adheres to Wesleyan-Arminian theology and has a connexional polity. The African Methodist Episcopal Church is the first independent Protestant denomination to be founded by black people, though it welcomes and has members of all ethnicities. It was founded by the Rt. Rev. Richard Allen in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1816 from several black Methodist congregations in the mid-Atlantic area that wanted to escape the discrimination that was commonplace in society. It was among the first denominations in the United States to be founded for this reason, rather than theological distinctions and has persistently advocated for the civil and human rights