The Christian Methodist Episcopal* Church, known as the CME Church, has grown to be a major Christian denomination with more than 650,000 members throughout the continental US and Alaska, as well as missions in Nigeria, Ghana, Haiti, and Jamaica. It is inclusive in its membership, welcoming all persons without regard to race, color, national origin or economic condition. The CME Church was organized December 16, 1870 as the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church in America. In May 1954, the name was changed to the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church. The CME church was organized by former slaves who had been members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, but who upon their freedom, requested their own separate and independent religious organization. Consequently, the CME church is the only historically independent black Methodist body organized with the full cooperation, support, ecclesiastical, and legal authority of the white denomination out of which it came.