AME Church continues 200-year journey toward racial justice

c. 2016 Religion News Service

PHILADELPHIA (RNS) Standing outside of the historic Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, Yvonne Studevan was full of pride as she saw her great-great-great-great-grandfather being honored with a new, six-foot bronze statue.

“We’re a denomination that a man had a vision for that was so strong because he had the right vision of serving God: love God, serve God, love God’s people,” Studevan said of Richard Allen, who started the nation’s first independent black denomination.