Beulah AME Church

The Beulah African Methodist Episcopal Church in Washington. It was first organized in 1848 by a group of six members; Jacob Hawkins, Jesse Perkins, Ellen Hawkins, Onely Delany, Charles Delany and Archibald Anderson. It has been operational ever since, save for a brief spell in the 1970s due to a lack of membership.

Beulah is a part of the African Methodist Episcopal denomination, the oldest black religious organization in the United States. Richard Allen, a former slave from Philadelphia who bought his way to freedom, became disillusioned with the racist practices of the Methodist church where he and other free blacks attended and began to organize a network of independent African-American congregations in 1787. These churches would eventually coalesce into the present AME Church in 1816.

Links:

African Methodist Episcopal Church (official site)

Doctrines and Disciplines of the AME Church (1817)

Mother Bethel AME Church (first church of Rev. Allen)