Richard Allen

Richard Allen (1760-1831) was converted at seventeen at an outdoor meeting of a Methodist society in the Delaware woods. His master was converted shortly after and allowed Richard to purchase his freedom.

“The English planters permitted some sort of religious instruction for their slaves after providing by royal decrees and special statutes in the colonies that conversion to Christianity would not free the slaves. Feeling, however, that the nearer the blacks were kept to the state of brutes that the more useful they would be as laborers, the masters generally neglected them.” (Carter G. Woodson, The History of the Negro Church, p. 6)

However, increasing numbers of slaves converted to evangelical religions such as the Methodist and Baptist faiths. Many clergy within these denominations promoted the idea that all Christians were equal in God’s eyes. They also encouraged worship that many Africans found to be similar, or at least adaptable, to African worship patterns, with enthusiastic singing, clapping, and dancing. (Laurie Maffly-Kipp, African American Religion, www.nhc.rtp.nc.us)

Allen moved to Philadelphia in 1786 and was appointed a minister at St. George’s Methodist Episcopal Church. He was required to preach at 5:00 am so that his meetings would not interfere with the white services.

As the number of black congregants began to grow, the white members became increasingly alarmed. They required the black members to wait for communion until they finished, and they segregated the seating.

“Many white Methodists saw black forms of worship (call-and-response, jumping, dancing, weeping, shouting, etc.) as questionable at best, and perhaps feared that giving blacks leadership in church would have a harmful effect on their faith.” (Rhianna Humphries, AME, http://religiousmovements.lib.virginia.edu)

One Sunday Allen and some black companions were led to an upstairs section – a “special seating arrangement” designed to segregate the congregation. Some sat in the front rows, not having been told that blacks could not sit in the front – even in their own section. During prayer, an usher informed them of their mistake and forcibly began to remove them. Allen’s partner Absalom Jones said to the usher, “Wait until prayer is over, and I will get up and trouble you no more.” But the usher would not wait. At that point, the group left and decided to build their own church. Allen said,

“We all went out of the church in a body, and they were no more plagued by us in the church.”

Allen bought land with his own money and erected a new church named Bethel (It later became an important stop on the Underground Railway). In 1816, he formed the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) denomination. Today the AME claims 2.5 million members and 6,200 congregations worldwide. Historian David Walker said years later about Richard Allen,

“When the Lord shall raise up colored historians in succeeding generations to present the crimes of this nation to the then gazing world, the Holy Ghost will make them do justice to the name of Bishop Allen. He will stand on the pages of history among the greatest divines who have lived since the apostolic age.” (David Walker, Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World)