Richard Allen

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[edit] Early life and freedom
Richard Allen's parents were held as slaves by the Quaker lawyer and jurist Benjamin Chew at Germantown, Pennsylvania (now a part of Philadelphia.) Richard Allen was born in 1760. After Chew suffered a financial setback, he sold Allen's parents with their four children to a man named Stokeley Sturgis, whose plantation was near Dover, Delaware.[2] [3]

As Allen and his brother grew older, they attended meetings of the Methodist Society. Richard had taught himself to read and write. Converted early, he joined the Methodist Society at an early age of 17. He began evangelizing and attending services so regularly that he attracted criticism from local slave owners. Allen and his brother redoubled their efforts for Sturgis.

Reverend Freeborn Garrettson, who had freed his own slaves in 1775, began to preach in Delaware. When Garrettson visited the Sturgis plantation to preach, "Allen's master was touched by this declaration... began to give consideration to the thought that holding slaves was sinful..." Sturgis soon was convinced that slavery was wrong, and offered his slaves an opportunity to buy their freedom. In 1777 Richard Allen bought his freedom and that of his brother.[4]


[edit] Marriage and family
Allen married Sarah Bass. Born into slavery in 1764 in Virginia's Isle of Wight County, she was brought to Philadelphia at eighteen years of age. She was free by 1800 when they met. They were married within a year. They had six children: Richard, Jr.; James, John, Peter, Sarah, and Ann.[5]

In addition to the work of the family, Sara actively assisted Allen in the church and supported work to take care of runaway slaves, including feeding and clothing them. In 1827, seeing that the ministers coming to conference looked bedraggled, she organized Daughters of Conference to mend their garments and help provide material support to the ministers.[6] That continued after her death.


[edit] Ministry
Allen was qualified as a preacher in 1784 at the first conference of the Methodist Church in North America in Baltimore, Maryland. He was allowed to lead services at 5 a.m.

In 1786, Allen became a preacher at St. George's United Methodist Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was only allowed to do so in the early mornings. As he attracted more black congregants, the church vestry voted to build a segregated gallery built for the use of blacks. Allen also regularly preached on the commons, slowly gaining a congregation of nearly 50, and supporting himself with a variety of odd jobs.

Allen and Absalom Jones, also a Methodist preacher, resented the white congregants' forcing them to a segregated section, and they decided to leave St. George's to have separate worship for African Americans. This brought some opposition from the white church and the more established blacks of the community. In 1787 Allen and Jones led the black members out of St. George's Methodist Church.

They formed the Free African Society (FAS), a non-denominational mutual aid society, which assisted fugitive slaves and new migrants to the city. Allen along with Absalom Jones, William Gray and William Wilcher found an available lot on Sixth Street near Lombard. Allen negotiated a price and purchased this lot in 1787 to build a church, but it was years before they had a building. Now occupied by Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, this is the oldest parcel of real estate in the United States owned continuously by black people.

Over time, most of the FAS members went with Absalom Jones, who was drawn to the Episcopal Church and founded the African Church. This was accepted as a parish in the Episcopal Church and opened its doors on July 17, 1794 as the African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas. Many blacks had been familiar with the Episcopal faith, of which Methodism was a part. In 1795 Absalom Jones was ordained as a deacon, and in 1804 as a priest, becoming the first black ordained as an Episcopal priest.

Allen and others wanted to continue in the Methodist tradition. Allen called their congregation the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME). Using a converted blacksmith shop which they moved to the site on Sixth Street, they opened the doors of Bethel AME Church on July 29, 1794, and were affiliated with the larger Methodist Episcopal Church. In the beginning, they had to rely on visiting white ministers. In 1799, Allen became the first black Methodist minister, ordained by Bishop Francis Asbury, in recognition of his leadership and preaching. He and the congregation still had to continue to negotiate white oversight and deal with white elders of the denomination.

In 1816 Allen united four African-American congregations of the Methodist Church in Philadelphia, New York, Salem, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland. Together they founded the independent denomination of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME), the first fully independent black denomination in the United States. On April 10, 1816, Allen was elected its first bishop. The African Methodist Episcopal Church is the oldest and largest formal institution in black America.

Allen at first supported the "back to Africa" movement,[citation needed] and a plan for emigration to Haiti. After Haiti achieved independence in 1804, its government had appealed to American blacks to immigrate there. In the face of strong opposition by Philadelphia’s black community, Allen dropped ideas of emigration.[citation needed] Blacks disagreed with the white-led American Colonization Society that organized the movement. They simply wanted rights in what they considered their own country.[citation needed] Allen, Jones, and James Forten, a successful businessman and sailmaker, were acknowledged leaders of the free black community in Philadelphia.

In September of 1830, black representatives from seven states convened in Philadelphia at the Bethel AME church for the first Negro Convention. A civic meeting, it was the first on such a scale of African-American leaders. Allen presided over the meeting, which addressed both regional and national topics. The convention came after the 1829 riot in Cincinnati when blacks were attacked, after which 1200 blacks left the city to go to Canada.[7] The convention focused on aid to such settlements in Canada, among other issues. The 1830 meeting was the beginning of an organizational effort known as the Negro Convention Movement, part of 19th century institution building.[8]


[edit] Death
From 1797 to his death at home on March 26, 1831,[9] Allen operated a station on the Underground Railroad for escaping slaves. This work was continued by Mother Bethel Church until the Emancipation. During and after the Civil War, the congregation aided blacks migrating to Philadelphia to live, helping them learn its urban ways.


[edit] See also