By the early nineteenth century at had become evident to African Americans living in South Central Pennsylvania that religious separatism was necessary to avoid further racial discrimination. After numerous A.M.E. (African Methodist Episcopal) churches had been set up in Pennsylvania, African Americans in Lancaster asked for an A.ME. church of their own. On June 10, 1817, close to fifty African Americans met at the house of James Clendening and they expressed a desire that Rev. Daniel Coker and the other circuit preachers of the Methodist denomination should visit the town and preach to them once every two weeks. At this meeting African Americans were granted an A.M.E. church and a board of trustees was assembled to look after as well as raise funds for the completion of the church.

Situated on South Duke Street in Lancaster City, the Bethel A.M.E. meetinghouse was completed in 1821. Historians have speculated on where African Methodists worshipped between 1817 and 1821 and most of their research has led them to believe that it was somewhere in the Southeast quadrant of Lancaster City (an area that has traditionally housed 90% of all African American Lancaster Countians) probably in what is now a vacant lot on Charlotte Street and also in various taverns on King Street.

As soon as the Bethel A.M.E. church in Lancaster opened, a sunday-school was immediately set up within it. Sunday schools were programs in which, not only people were taught about their faith, but more importantly these schools, by use of teaching people how to read via the bible, served as one of the only institutions to promote literacy within the African American community. Three years after it was built and seven years after it had been conceived, the Bethel A.M.E. church in Lancaster had nearly 120 members, which is nearly 40% of the total African American population in Lancaster (which at the time was 308). As the nineteenth century progressed the Bethel A.M.E. church began to be a catalyst for other social organizations, most notably in the form of the African School, which was formed in 1843 and replaced the already existing Sunday School. Although it was not the first secular school set up for African-Americans living in Lancaster, it nevertheless remains to be an important milestone of African American social history in Lancaster. The Bethel A.M.E. church also housed the Mount Parent Lodge N.25 F&AM and the Jupiter Grand Cabinet Council of Color, two groups that can best be described as Masonic orders and there members were mostly comprised of African American merchants and tradesman. When African Americans were allowed to serve their country by fighting in the Civil War, a group of African American volunteers met on the steps of Bethel and then marched to the County Courthouse to enlist. Many African American enlisted men went on to fight for their country, some were in such decorated regiments as the 54th Massachusetts.

With the end of the Civil War came an increase in racism and violent acts towards African Americans. The Bethel A.M.E. felt this surge of intolerance on April 4, 1879, when the church was set ablaze by arsonists. The church was destroyed, little remained of its external structure, and only a portion of the furnishings could be salvaged (the Sunday School Library, a sofa, and pulpit chairs). Although never apprehended, or identified, witnesses said that they saw two men in overcoats running from the building right before the fire was discovered. In the interim between the destruction of the first Bethel church and the building of a second, the A.M.E. congregation worshipped at the Love and Charity Hall which at one time was located at 525 Chester Street.

On November 9, 1879 a new church was built on the corner of Strawberry and North Streets. This is the Bethel A.M.E. that exists and is still open today. There is nothing left of the first A.M.E. church except the graveyard, which although has been vandalized, still contains every headstone that it did in the middle of the nineteenth century.