Black Methodists comprised one-fifth of the church’s North American membership

Evidence

In the second half of the eighteenth century, the Methodist Church provided an institutional home for some Black Christians. Though they were segregated from white parishioners, Black Methodists could join congregations, and they soon made up 20 percent of the church’s members in North America. It was in this context that the first “visible institutions” for Black religious practice began to emerge. — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 1025