Christian Methodist Episcopal Church - Definition and Overview

The Christian Methodist Epsicopal Church is an historically black denomination within the broader context of Methodism. The group was organized in 1870 when several black ministers, with the full support of their white counterparts in the former Methodist Episcopal Church, South, met to form an organization that would allow them to establish and maintain their own polity, that is, to ordain their own bishops and ministers without the necessity of them being officially endorsed or appointed by the white-dominated body. They called this fellowship the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church, which it remained until their successors adopted the current name in the 1950s.

The CME church maintains a publishing house in Memphis, Tennessee and Lane College, an accredited four-year liberal arts college in Jackson, Tennessee.