The Commission on Cooperation was created in 1985 to promote cooperation among the churches in areas such as publishing, missions, social concerns and higher education. The commission was asked to submit a plan of union to the AME, AMEZ and UM general conferences in 2000 and the CME general conference in 2002.
Some representatives serve on both commissions.
The New York-based United Methodist Commission on Christian Unity is planning educational efforts leading to a service of repentance at the UM General Conference in Cleveland in the year 2000. The AME church, formally organized in 1816, traces its origin to an incident at St. George s Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia in 1787, when a group of African Americans left the church to protest racial discrimination. The AMEZ Church dates from 1796, when it was organized by a group of members protesting discrimination in the John Street Methodist Church in New York. AME s first church, named Zion, was built in 1800, and that word was later made part of the denominational title. The CME Church was established in 1870, after an agreement between white and black members of the Methodist Episcopal Church South.