In 1787, after years of discrimination and second-class treatment by their white church brethren, Allen and his collaborator, fellow Methodist Absalom Jones, formed the Free African Society, a non-denominational religious mutual aid organization for African Americans. Seven years later, Allen moved on to found the first independent African American denomination, the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, which still thrives today. Black churches have served their communities as centers for identity building, social activism and musical expression. These churches later became the cradle of the black civil rights movement.