Born: February 14, 1760, Philadelphia, PA

Education: Self-educated

Died: March 26, 1831, Philadelphia, PA

Born a slave, Allen came of age during the American Revolution, whose “created equal” ideal inspired emergent Christian denominations. Self-taught, he and coworker Absalom Jones joined St. George's Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia as well as the black freedom struggle. As blacks faced separation and disrespect at St. George's, Allen and Jones led their walkout and organized the Free African Society (FAS) in 1787. FAS eventually formed a congregation and chose affiliation with the Protestant Episcopal Church. Devoted to Methodism, Allen departed and founded Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) in 1794.

Bethel reflected the spread of black Methodists in northern states. They created an AME denomination and elected Allen bishop in 1816. He urged congregants to embrace faith and liberty, to resist enslavement and racial oppression. He established the Bethel Benevolent Society and African Society for the Education of Youth, which espoused black literacy, morality, pride, self-help, and solidarity. An outspoken abolitionist, Allen decried the American Colonization Society (ACS), which would relocate freed blacks to Africa and further secure US slavery. He preached: “We will never separate ourselves voluntarily from the slave population” (www.aaregistry.org/historic_events/view/richard-allen-bishop-ames-first-leader). His opposition to ACS moved him to convene the first Negro National Convention at Bethel in 1830.