Emanuel AME Church
| Emanuel AME Church | |
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| "Mother Emanuel" African Methodist Episcopal Church |
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 Emanuel AME Church
Emanuel AME Church
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| 32°47′14″N 79°55′59″W / 32.78722°N 79.93306°WCoordinates: 32°47′14″N 79°55′59″W / 32.78722°N 79.93306°W | |
| Location | Charleston, South Carolina |
| Country | United States |
| Denomination | African Methodist Episcopal Church |
| Membership | 1600 (2008) |
| Website | emanuelamechurch.org |
| History | |
| Founded | 1816 |
| Founder(s) | Rev. Morris Brown Denmark Vesey |
| Architecture | |
| Status | Church |
| Functional status | Active |
| Architect(s) | John Henry Deveraux |
| Style | Gothic Revival |
| Groundbreaking | 1891 |
| Specifications | |
| Capacity | 2500 |
| Number of spires | 1 |
| Administration | |
| Parish | African Methodist Episcopal Church |
| District | Seventh |
| Clergy | |
| Bishop(s) | Richard Franklin Norris |
| Senior pastor(s) | Rev. Eric S.C. Manning |
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Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church
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| Location | Charleston, South Carolina |
| Architect | John Henry Deveraux |
| Part of | Charleston Historic District (#66000964 78002497) |
| Designated CP | October 15, 1966 July 16, 1978 |
The Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, often referred to as Mother Emanuel, is a church in Charleston, South Carolina. Founded in 1816, Emanuel AME is the oldest African Methodist Episcopal church in the Southern United States, with the first independent black denomination in the United States as well as one of the oldest black congregations south of Baltimore.
The church was founded as the Hampstead Church on Reid and Hanover Streets in 1815 or 1816 or 1817 or 1818 by African Americans who were former members of Charleston's three Methodist Episcopal churches. State law and city ordinance required lawful churches to be dominated by whites, though African Americans held separate services, usually in the basements. Hampstead Church was part of the "Bethel circuit" of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the first independent black denomination in the United States, founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1816 by Richard Allen. They created an independent congregation because of a dispute over use of the black burial ground. The white-dominated churches had increasingly discriminated against blacks in Charleston, culminating in Bethel Methodist's construction of a hearse house over its black burial ground. In 1818 church leader Morris Brown left a white Methodist church in protest, and more than 4,000 Black members of the city's three Methodist churches followed him to create this new church.
State and city ordinances at the time limited worship services by black people to daylight hours, required that a majority of congregants in a given church be white, and prohibited black literacy. In 1818, Charleston officials arrested 140 black church members and sentenced eight church leaders to fines and lashes. City officials again raided the church in 1820 and 1821 in a pattern of harassment.
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