The African American Christian experience is one of the many Christian experiences and one of the most unique. In the United States its started with the African slave Church. Evangelical ministers predominately of the Baptist and Methodist persuasion preached and ministered to the slaves in the South. Yet even with the slave owners restricted watch on the life and religious experience of the slaves they formed a distinct religious experience. The African slaves would hold "hush" meetings and prayer and praise services on their own either at midnight or in the early hours of the morning. The African slave church was full of emotion, fire and zeal. In plantation areas, slaves organized underground churches and hidden religious meetings, the "invisible church", where slaves were free to mix evangelical Christianity with African beliefs and African rhythms. They turned Wesleyan Methodist hymns into spirituals.The underground churches provided psychological refuge from the white world. The spirituals gave the church members a secret way to communicate and, in some cases, to plan rebellion. After the Civil war and into Reconstruction era African Americans began to split from and separate and form their own churches and assemblies due to the racist backlash from the established white Christian churches and denominations. Groups such as the African Methodist Episcopal Church (est. 1816), African Methodist Episcopal Zion (est. 1821), National Baptist Convention (est. 1895), Colored Methodist Episcopal Church (CME) now Christian Methodist Episcopal(est. 1870) began to grown and flourish not only in the South but in all parts of the country among African Americans. The church became and still is the most powerful and influential organization in the African American community from it major civil rights leaders would and did come such as Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King. Not only did Methodism and the Baptist denominations grow prominent in the African American community when the Holiness Pentecostal movement began many African Americans joined the movement and contributed much to it. Organizations such as the United Holy Church of America (UHCA ) est. 1886, Fire Baptized Holiness Church of God of the Americas (est. 1908), Church of God in Christ (est. 1897) and now holds a membership of 5.5 million worldwide, Pentecostal Assemblies of the World (est. 1914) and several other Pentecostal Holiness organizations. Many African Americans flocked to the Pentecostal Holiness movement because it emphasized Holiness, experience and empowerment to believers. And the worship in Pentecostal Holiness churches resembled the free worship of the African slave churches in tongues, expressive dancing, focus on the Holy Spirit, rhythmic preaching and estatic praise and worship. Women have also held prominent roles in public worship of the African American church. Women's role in the African American church flow from loosely barred in the Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ (where women are not allowed in public ministry but may serve as missionaries) to limited in traditions such as the Church of God in Christ (where women may serve as evangelist and missionary but they are not ordained) to complete freedom in traditions such as the African Methodist Episcopal Church and United Holy Church of America (where women are ordained elders, deacons, pastors and consecrated bishops).. Als the role of the senior and mature women in Mother's board and Church mothers' positions are traditional in African American churches of several persuasions. The African American Christian experience has a great effect on the African American experience as a whole. The tradition of African-Americans worshipping together continued to develop during the late 19th century and continues to this day despite the decline of segregationist attitudes and the general acceptability of integrated worship. African American churches have long been the centers of communities, serving as school sites in the early years after the Civil War, taking up social welfare functions, such as providing for the indigent, and going on to establish schools, orphanages and prison ministries. As a result, black churches have fostered built strong community organizations and provided spiritual and political leadership, especially during the civil rights movement.
