Richard Allen

Richard Allen was born into slavery in Philadelphia, converted to Methodism as a young man, and purchased his own freedom. In 1787, with Absalom Jones, he founded the Free African Society, a mutual-aid organization for Black Philadelphians — one of the seedbeds of independent Black community life in the new nation.

After repeated humiliations in white-controlled churches, Allen led Black worshippers out to build their own. The congregation he founded grew into the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, formally organized in 1816 with Allen as its first bishop — the oldest independent Black denomination in the United States and a future engine of education and civil rights.