Richard Allen
Richard Allen (1760 - 1831)
You can hear an audio recording of this post on episode 21 of the Methodical Methodist Podcast!
Richard Allen has been called Freedom’s Prophet, the Apostle of Freedom, and A Black Founding Father. He was born as a slave in a colonial American world. And Allen would grow up to do some incredible things – He was the founder and pastor of Mother Bethel Church in South Philadelphia. He was the organizer of the Free African Society which was the first black reform society in America. He is probably most known for being the founder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Furthermore, he was the first black Bishop in the United States, and perhaps even the world. He was a preacher, an author, an abolitionist, and a conductor on the underground railroad and he lived an incredible life. Honestly, I think we could spend hours just listing all his accomplishments. He did more in one lifetime than most people do in ten lifetimes. This episode, in my opinion is incredibly timely. Richard Allen expresses some of the racial injustice that we have continued to see so much of here recently in our nation.
Richard Allen was born on February 14, 1760 at two o’clock in the morning. This birth occurred just a few weeks after a comet had flown across the sky. It is as if this comet had marked this special occasion. One biographer points to Isaiah 62:1 in denoting this special birth – Allen who would be a prophet in his own right certainly lives up to these words – “For Zion’s sake, I will not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest, until the righteousness thereof go forth as brightness, and the salvation thereof as a lamp that burneth.”
Allen was born in Philadelphia as an enslaved child to a woman who was owned by a wealthy local attorney named Benjamin Chew. He was merely referred to as “Negro Richard.” After his birth, he – along with his mother, father, and three siblings – were moved to Chew’s second property in Delaware. He apparently had three properties in all. In his own autobiography, Allen says very little about growing up as a slave, but it is clear that (even after he had been freed from slavery) he never forgot how horrible slavery had been. At the end of his life, he famously wrote, “Slavery is a bitter pill.”
Around 1768, when Allen was about 7 or 8 years old, he and his family were sold to one of Benjamin Chew’s Delaware neighbors – a farmer named Stokeley Sturgis. Allen spent over a decade working the land on Sturgis’s farm. During that time, Sturgis sold his mother and three of his siblings to cover his debts. Three of his siblings remained there with Allen at Sturgis’s farm. Allen was able to visit his mother from time to time – but not very often. It is heartbreaking to hear about a seven-year-old being separated from his mother and some of his siblings. As a young child, he was forced to work all day in the fields. All he had ever known was slavery.
Allen wrote about his experience as a slave saying, “When we would think that our day’s work was never done, we often thought that after our master’s death we were liable to be sold to the highest bidder, as [Sturgis] was much in debt; and thus my troubles were increased, and I was often brought to weep between the porch and the altar.”
He clearly experienced this feeling of hopelessness, that he might never find freedom. But – as we will see – Allen was able to become a free man. It all started when the woods near Sturgis’ farm had been cleared. This clearing provided space for an itinerant Methodist preacher to come spreading the gospel to a group of slaves – and Richard Allen was among that group. In 1777, at the age of seventeen, he was “born again” after hearing a revival sermon that was preached by this itinerant minister.
Allen spoke about his conversion saying, “I was awakened and brought to see myself poor, wretched and undone, and without the mercy of God must be lost. One night I though Hell would be my portion. I cried to the Lord both night and day. I cried unto him who delighted to hear the prayers of a poor sinner. All of a sudden my dungeon shook, my chains flew off, and, glory to God, I cried.” Allen quickly joined this new Methodist society that continued to meet in the woods near Sturgis’ farm. This was a very foundational moment in his life.
For the most part, Allen found support among the Methodist societies. Although American Methodism would eventually split North and South over the debate of slavery – in Allen’s day, Methodists were outspoken with their antislavery comments. John Wesley had offered his declaration against slavery in his tract “Thoughts upon Slavery.” Unfortunately, over time – Methodists forgot their original stance against the sin of slavery.
In his own life, however, Richard Allen found that Methodism allowed him to become an antislavery spokesman. During this time, most Methodist ministers were openly against slavery. The church also recruited black people – both slave and free to engage in organizational duties and even preach. Folks like Richard Allen – but also John Jea, Absalom Jones, Boston King, John Marrant, George White and Peter Williams were able to stand up in Methodist pulpits and preach against the evils of slavery. Believe it or not it wasn’t unusual for a black slave to preach in front of white slaveowners in a Methodist church.
Over time, Allen attended Methodists meetings – and he slowly convinced his Master, Sturgis to allow some of these Meetings to occur in and around Sturgis’ home. That is exactly what happened during the summer of 1779 – in fact, Francis Asbury even visited and preached at Sturgis’ home. Then, in September 1779, a preacher named Freeborn Garrettson (who had freed his own slaves in 1775) lectured Sturgis about being a slaveowner saying, “Thou art weighed in the balance, and found wanting.”
After that experience, Sturgis could no longer justify being a slaveowner. Allen said that after his encounter with Garrettson, “Sturgis could no longer be satisfied to hold slaves.”
By January 25, 1780 – at the age of 20 years old – Allen had come to an agreement with his master: he would pay two thousand dollars over the span of five years in order to buy his freedom (Which this is the equivalent of about 37,500 dollars today – so that’s just an incredibly large sum of money). Now, I do not want to make Sturgis out to be the hero in this story. I don’t want him to seem like a white savior, at all. He was still flawed. Even though Sturgis knew that slavery was morally wrong… he still required Allen to buy the freedom that he should have been granted in the first place. I wish that part of the story happened differently. But we do see a small shift in Sturgis’ life. He slowly started to turn his focus off his own freedom and realized that freedom should be extended to Richard Allen as well.
But from then on, Allen worked constantly – took every odd job – and saved every penny in order to buy his freedom as soon as possible. Allen was able to purchase his freedom a year and a half early... that is how hard he worked! He signed his contract with Stokeley Sturgis in 1780; and he paid the last installment in August 1783. At the age of 23, Allen walked away with his freedom.
One of the first things that he did with his independence was choose a new name. Up until this point, he had only been referred to as “Negro Richard.” But with his new freedom, Richard was able to pick out a last name – Allen. And with a new name and a new start, Richard Allen set off on the Methodist preaching circuit. Allen was qualified as a preacher in 1784 at the Christmas Conference in Baltimore, Maryland. It didn’t take long for the newly itinerant Allen to become a familiar figure at camp meetings and revivals.
Just at the sound of Allen’s voice saying, “Glory be to God” or “Come unto me, all ye that are weary and heavy laden” people would reply saying, “I have never heard such preaching before.” Because of his incredible preaching skills, Allen became such a big name in Methodism that Pennsylvania abolitionists used his story as a model for others. They pointed out his extensive religious journeys that even extended to him preaching to Native Americans over the span of two months. After only four years of freedom, Richard Allen was known on both sides of the Atlantic – here in America and in Britain.
Despite times of illness, Richard continued to travel and preach. He preached in circuits in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Delaware. In his autobiography, Allen named two dozen people that he stayed with, prayed with, and preached with. In fact, the majority of his contacts were white people.
But Allen knew there were limits to where he could go and preach – and where he could not go. At one point, Bishop Francis Asbury asked Richard Allen to “travel abroad” with him and visit slavery’s heartland – Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina. Asbury warned him though, that he would not be allowed to intermix with slaves, and he would have to sleep in his carriage at night.
Allen firmly replied, “I will not travel under those conditions. If I was taken sick, who would support me?” Asbury didn’t seem to understand Allen’s concerns. Asbury replied, that he would provide him adequate food and clothing. But Allen was speaking to a deeper situation. He knew that if he traveled to the deep South, he would never be treated as a free man. Allen knew that if he was to become sick and unable to travel – he would be left to the kindness of strangers and locals – who more than likely disagreed with black equality and abolitionism. He was unwilling to risk his freedom. He told Asbury no and headed north again.
Despite Asbury’s failure to truly understand what black people – and Allen in particular was up against. These two Methodist itinerant ministers formed a very close relationship. An interracial friendship in the late-eighteenth century in America was fairly uncommon. But in 1803, Allen celebrated his two decades of friendship by purchasing a horse for Asbury – it cost him $90 which was a pretty substantial amount of money back then.
These two men had been through some foundational experiences by this point. After all, when Allen had only been free for a just a short time, it was Asbury who called on him by his full name in a crowd and asked Allen. to help him save souls. When Allen broke away from white Methodists at St. Geroge’s in the 1790’s, it was Asbury who gave the inaugural address to the new black church. And… it was Asbury who had ordained Allen as the first black Methodist deacon in 1799.
At the age of twenty-six, Allen traveled to Philadelphia and began preaching to the black community at St. George’s Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia, but he was restricted to early morning services. He would hold services at 5:00am and a white pastor preached there later as well. Believe it or not, attendance quickly soared at this early, early service. As Allen wrote, “I soon saw a large field open in seeking and instructing my African brethren.” Philadelphia had changed drastically by 1790. It was once a place where nearly 90% of black people were slaves. But by 1790, the overwhelming majority of the City of Brotherly Love had become free and was considered the capital of free black life.
Allen not only preached in Philadelphia – he also worked closely with the Philadelphia Abolitionist Society. He really had an extremely good work ethic. When he wasn’t preaching or advocating for anti-slavery – he was laboring as a whitewasher, dry-goods dealer, cobbler, and he even formed his own chimney-sweeping business which became very successful.
Although Philadelphia was changing – Allen saw that there were still many challenges that black people were facing. He realized that many white preachers had long forgotten the black community. In order to try and fill this gap, Allen would preach up to five times a day – in St. George’s, on street corners, and wherever he could find a place. Within a year, Allen went from five members to forty-two members at St. George’s.
By 1787, Allen had come to turn his thoughts to finding a place of worship for the black community. He wanted to even build - as he called it - an independent African Church. But Allen and his fellow colleagues (Absalom Jones, William White, and Darius Grinning) were met with opposition from the white leaders at St. George’s. In fact, Allen very vividly remembered later that they were lectured, harangued and they even used very degrading and insulting language toward them.
Still, Allen bided his time and continued to work toward this goal. White leaders instructed him to conduct services in a sober, deferential, and quiet way. Still, although he only whispered about this idea, Allen continued working toward an independent African Church. In 1787, Allen - along with seven other men - came together to form the Free African Society. This society provided financial support to member families, and it epitomized black independence in the post-Revolutionary period. It was a benevolent community organization as well as a lobbying group. It quickly became a model for black communities around the country.
All of this finally led to what many scholars have called: “a black exodus from a segregated white church.” It started when, in the early 1790s, Allen and the other black members of St. George’s found that they could not sit in their normal pews. They were forced to sit in the balcony instead. Allen writes about this experience saying, “A number of us usually attended St. George’s church, and when the colored people began to get numerous in attending the church, they moved us from the seats we usually sat on, and placed us around the wall.” Then, they were told that they must sit in the segregated balcony.
On one Sunday, the balcony was full – so Allen and his friend Absalom Jones – sat in a pew on the main floor. When the white pastor began to pray, a white trustee grabbed ahold of the Reverend Absalom Jones and said, “you must get up – you must not kneel here.” Jones admonished the man and said, “wait until the prayer is over.” The white trustee insisted by saying, “No, you must get up now or I will call for aid and force you away.” Again, Absalom Jones said, “Wait until the prayer is over.” With that, white officials moved in, and they banished the African Americans to the segregated balconies. But right after the prayer was finished - all the black members walked out of the church entirely. In response to this event, Allen said, “White were no more plagued with us in their church.” Again, this has been called the black exodus and the St. George’s Walkout.
In March 1793, Richard Allen awoke before dawn, said a prayer, and then went to dig the foundation of an African church. Allen himself wrote, “As I was the first proposer of the African church, I put the first spade in the ground to dig a cellar for the church. This was the first African church or meetinghouse that was erected in the United States of America.” This foundation made way for St. Thomas’ African Episcopal Church located on Fifth between Walnut and Locust streets. His good friend Absalom Jones accepted the offer to lead this church. Allen would come to head Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church which would rise just a few blocks away.
An official dedication of the first African Methodist Episcopal Church occurred on July 29, 1794. On this special occasion, Francis Asbury offered the opening sermon. Within a year, Allen had attracted over one hundred congregants. By Allen’s death in 1831, The AME Church had exploded in membership claiming over 3,000 parishioners in Philadelphia alone.
Allen, by the time he was in his thirties, had become a very eligible bachelor. And that is when his first wife Flora comes into view. Flora was a former slave who had moved to Philadelphia and started attending Methodist class meetings. She shared this same vision that Richard Allen had - of creating a strong and independent free black church. The couple married in October 1790. Flora joined her husband in prayer at class meetings, Sunday services, and engaged in benevolent events within the black community.
Unfortunately, on March 11, 1801, Flora Allen died after a nine-month illness. Richard went on to marry a woman named Sarah Bass that same year. Sarah, like Flora Allen, had been a slave. She was born in Virginia in 1764, attained her freedom, and move to Philadelphia. She also attended Methodist class meetings. She attended services at St. George’s and was a founding member of Bethel Church as well. Because of her work in the church and in the community, she became known by many black Methodists as “Mother Allen.” She was known for opening her home to the friendless, the homeless, and the penniless fugitives. She was even known to help female preachers like Jarena Lee speak publicly in the black church. Another amazing thing about Sarah was that she and Richard operated a station on the Underground Railroad for fugitive slaves throughout starting in 1797 until they passed away.
Richard Allen was doing extraordinary work in leading this new independent black church. He was partnering with Absalom Jones and Caesar Whittington in his work with the church as well. And he even took out loans and sought out the help of white abolitionists.
But all of that came to a crashing halt when an epidemic hit. In the late summer of 1793, Allen saw Philadelphia being gripped by the worst fever outbreak ever. People fled the city. Infected homes were barricaded. And by mid-September – one man said, “terror now became universal.” All of the Abolitionist work came to a grinding halt as well. And the yellow-fever epidemic was deemed a public health crisis.
During this time, Richard Allen and Absalom Jones solicited the help of the black community to help fight this epidemic. They believed that black aid to white citizens would help the cause of racial justice. Black aid workers would go around and visit hundreds of white yellow-fever victims and their families. Allen, Jones, and their assistants visited roughly twenty families per day.
Richard Allen himself contracted this disease in late September. Interestingly, Alexander Hamilton (one of the founding fathers) had also contracted yellow-fever and his home was only a few blocks from Richard Allen’s house. Hamilton was able to recover with the help of a personal at home nurse.
But Allen was admitted to Bush Hill hospital in Philadelphia and stayed from September 29 until November 20 – nearly two months. He experienced headaches, chills, sharp pains in his chest – which was often followed by an upset stomach. In addition, he also experienced hysteria and lunacy. Allen miraculously survived. His neighborhood was ravaged by the disease – nearly 55 residents died by the end of the year. Black residents were particularly susceptible to the disease because they had a lack of money and resources.
Much like COVID-19, they had problems knowing the cause of the disease and how it spread. It wasn’t until later that they found that the disease spread through mosquitos. At the time, people believed it spread through polluted fogs… so they fought yellow fever by clearing the air. And the way that they did that was by smoking cigars… which is kind of crazy. But even crazier – this inadvertently worked, because the cigar smoke would actually deter mosquitos. In the end, the final numbers of the 1793 epidemic reached around four to five thousand people.
Despite the amazing and incredible work that the black community did during this time - This epidemic also became a vector of racial fears. As the fever got worse, black people became even more indispensable, and racial fears escalated. If something was stolen from a house, white citizens would blame the black community. White citizens argued that black nurses were price gouging. In response to these sentiments and white journalists who were publishing racist propaganda. Richard Allen and Absalom Jones decided to issue their own rebuttal.
In 1794, Richard Allen and his colleague Absalom Jones published Allen’s first pamphlet entitled: “A Narrative of the Proceedings of the Black People during the Late Awful Calamity in Philadelphia, in the Year 1793; and a Refutation of Some Censures Thrown upon Them in Some Late Publications.”
In the pamphlet, they write an important and bold message: “We have many unprovoked enemies, who begrudge us the liberty we enjoy, and are glad to hear of any complaint against our color, be it just or unjust; in consequence of which we are more earnestly endeavoring all in our power to warn, rebuke, and exhort our African friends, to keep a conscience void of offense towards God and man; and, at the same time, would not be backward to interfere, when stigmas or oppression appear pointed at, or attempted against them, unjustly; and we are confident, we shall stand justified in the sight of the candid and judicious for such conduct.”
This pamphlet tracked racist accusations that white journalists had published about the black community during the yellow fever epidemic. It also documented Allen’s leadership among the church and abolitionist community. It represented Allen’s reform politics and spoke against slavery and the need for racial justice.
At the end of their pamphlet, Richard Allen inserted his own antislavery addendum entitled “An Address to Those Who Keep Slaves and Approve the Practice.” In the addendum, Allen writes, “If you love your children, if you love your country, if you love the God of Love… clear your hands from slaves, burden not your children or country with them.”
Allen continued speaking out and doing the work of an abolitionist. And Allen really saw his role as a black mediator. As Richard Newman states, “Although not formally involved in politics, Allen envisioned himself as a moral mediator – a black leader who mapped out a moral compass for his fellow Americans on the race issue.”
In recognition of his leadership and preaching, Allen was ordained as the first black Methodist minister by Bishop Francis Asbury in 1799. Unfortunately, as far as white elders were concerned – Allen and the black church - was still required to defer to white clerics. Despite this, Allen’s church – Bethel continued to grow and became one of Philadelphia’s fastest growing churches – not just merely one of its fasting growing black churches. By the 1820s, Bethel reached over 200 baptisms annually and could claim that it contributed 8 percent of Philadelphia’s total baptisms.
In 1816, Allen united five African-American congregations of the Methodist Church in Philadelphia; Attleborough, Pennsylvania; 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, the other ministers elected Allen as their first bishop. The African Methodist Episcopal Church is the oldest and largest formal institution in black America.
By 1817, Richard and his colleague Jacob Tapsico coauthored The Doctrines and Discipline of the African Methodist Episcopal Church which helped state the ecclesiastical organization and theological groundwork of the AME Church.
As Bishop and leader of this new church, Allen did eventually find challenged. On June 6, 1820, a small group of disaffected parishioners detached themselves from Bethel Church and formed a distinct society and took the name “Wesley Church” which was situated just ninety feet behind Bethel Church. They charged Allen with financial impropriety and moral high-handedness. The reasonings behind this are not exactly clear… but it all started with a man named Jonathan Tudas who violated Bethel Church rules and allegedly exposed himself to a woman in a basement and fathered a child (with a white woman) out of wedlock. When Allen banished Tudas from the church – he did not go quietly. Tudas led a revolt against Allen and made allegations of financial impropriety. Allen made efforts to unite Wesley and Bethel Church, but unfortunately the union attempts were unsuccessful.
Another conflict that arose in the church was the debate around African American women’s right to preach. The key figure in this debate was Jerena Lee – a free black woman from New Jersey who compelled Allen to expand African American women’s roles beyond just being a helpmate. Their first meeting did not go well. Allen was absolutely against female preaching… But, after a preacher fell silent at Bethel services one day – Lee saw an opportunity. She jumped up and took over. Allen was in the congregation and was duly impressed. He became an active supporter of her preaching. Together, Allen and Lee preached at some of the biggest revivals on the mid Atlantic circuit. Unfortunatley, not everyone agreed with Allen’s inclusion of Jerena Lee’s preaching.
Still, Allen continued to grow the AME church nationally. Allen formed the AME Connection and expanded beyond Philadelphia to various parts of Maryland, Delaware, New York, Massachusetts, South Carolina, Indiana, and Ohio. The AME Church even reached up into Upper Canada as well.
Allen then began to turn his sights on Haitian migrants. Allen began to explore the idea of Haiti become a political and religious refuge and an option for both black missionaries and black masses. His vision was never fully realized, but because of his leadership the AME Church continued to grow and expand.
On February 14, 1828, Allen held a birthday party as he now had turned 68 years old. By this time, Allen’s birthday was celebrated as an African American festive day. Richard Allen had really become a Celebrity. In his old age, Allen could often be seen walking around Bethel Church with his trusty gold capped cane – which was bequeathed to him by Absalom Jones. But Allen remained involved in the struggle for social justice. One of the things he did during this time was that he shifted his sights from Haitian migration to Canadian migration. As racial tensions continued to rise in America, Allen considered Canada a place of refuge beyond the United States. Allen was always trying to find a pathway for the black community to find freedom and better treatment.
On March 26, 1831, Richard Allen passed away at the age of 71, and black Philadelphia stopped in its tracks. Even though he had been ailing, this was still a big surprise. At his funeral, one observer remarked, “The immense concourse of people who attended the funeral of this pious patriarch exceeded perhaps anything of the kind witnessed in this country. No other African corpse was even attended to the place of internment in America by so great a number of more sincere mourners.”
As one man from Ohio remarked, “Richard Allen, the greatest pioneer of the A.M.E. Church, with the spirit of inspiration, diffused through every part of his physical organization, who felt that God had made of one blood all men to dwell on the face of the earth and that all mean are created free and equal that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these, are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Liberty was his object.”
