Free African Society Founded in Philadelphia by Jones and Allen

Absalom Jones and Richard Allen co-founded the Free African Society in Philadelphia in April 1787 — the first independent Black civic organization in the United States. It provided mutual aid, burial insurance, and support to newly freed and free Black Philadelphians. The Society later became the nucleus of the first Black church denominations: Jones's African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas and Allen's Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church. It modeled Black self-determination outside white i