AME laity meeting in North Charleston, S.C.

The AME leadership recently officiated the funeral of Rev. Clementa Pinckney in Charleston, S.C.

The oldest black religious organization in the United States, the African Methodist Episcopal Church, is gathering its lay leaders for a "Great Commission" in an area brought into focus recently for the killing of unarmed Walter Scott by a policeman and the Charleston 9 Massacre allegedly perpetrated by a KKK sympathizer, Dylann Roof.

The organization is meeting after issuing a resolution into the death of another one of its members, Sandra Bland, near her Alma mater, Prairie View A&M University in Texas. In a statement, the church said, "Let us be clear: we are not satisfied with the explanation that she committed suicide."

On the meeting's agenda are economic, business, and social action workshops; faith based neighborhood partnerships, worship, singing, and prayer.

NAACP National President and CEO Rev. Cornell Williams Brooks, Esq. will give the closing speech at an Awards Banquet to be held Wednesday night. Brooks is a fourth-generation minister in the AME Church.