The Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, often referred to as Mother Emanuel, is a church in Charleston, South Carolina. Founded in 1817, Emanuel AME is the oldest African Methodist Episcopal church in the Southern United States. This, the first independent black denomination in the United States, was founded in 1816 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Mother Emanuel has one of the oldest black congregations south of Baltimore. Black Baptist churches were founded in South Carolina and Georgia before the American Revolutionary War. From Wikipedia