February 7, 2024 • 54 mins
In Part 2 of the 1830 conversation with Richard Allen, he’ll explain why the Africans voted not to return to Africa, why the quakers kicked him out of their church, and why black people are immune to yellow fever (per Dr. Benjamin Rush).
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(00:28):
Welcome back to part two of Richard Allen.
In the last episode, we talked aboutRichard working on the underground
railroad, how he paid for all of hisventures and his approach to talking
a little bit, then doing a lot.
In this episode, he'll tell us howhe had to physically restrain the
Methodist from taking over his church.
(00:49):
And he talks about why he consideredleaving the United States forever.
Absolutely.
And I can tell you when I firstbecame a believer, I spent All of
my free time, reading the Word ofGod, praying, seeking God, listening
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for his direction in my life.
You see, because you sayyou are a Christian, that
doesn't make you a Christian.
Because a Christian puts Christ and theWord of God As the first place in their
life, everything else is secondary.
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And I believe that if peoplewholeheartedly come to the faith,
and by their faith they do thingsthat please God, this is the
path that we need to follow.
So let's talk about the church,the African Methodist Episcopal
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Church, is that what it's
called?
The AME?
Yes it came to be called , Mother BethelAfrican Methodist Episcopal Church.
Mother Because it's the mother churchof the denomination that was formed.
And it got the name Bethel because aminister who was visiting with us said,
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Boy, I hope this church will be a realBethel for the Africans in this city.
Bethel is a Hebrew wordthat means house of God.
. So the AME and the Mother BethelMethodist Church are the same.
(02:39):
Yes, it, the whole title is Mother BethelAfrican Methodist Episcopal Church.
I
see.
Okay, now I'm
with you.
Okay.
Some people get confusedwhen they see Episcopal.
That's not the denomination.
Episcopal, in this context, simplymeans that have bishops that we
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assign to run church affairs.
Of which you are the first, correct?
Yes, that's correct.
they had the first vote,I was not selected.
That's number one
they didn't like your
attitude?
No, it wasn't about attitude.
The one who was selected wasa man by the name of Coker,
(03:25):
Reverend Coker from Baltimore.
And he was young.
He was younger than I was.
He was a very fiery preacher.
And He was chosen.
However, shortly after he was chosenor nominated, he turned it down.
Because I really believe that hefelt that I would make a better
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bishop or leader than he wouldbecause I had a lot more experience.
So tell me a little bit abouthow that came into being.
I also, and I don't know about thisperson, but as I read about you, I
keep hearing the name Absalom Jones.
Did
you start it with you?
Well, when I came to Philadelphiaat the invitation of St.
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George's Methodist Church inthe year 1786, and I came to St.
George's Church, Absalom Jones was amember, an African member of that church.
And what happened was they would say tome that I could hold services for Africans
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at 5 o'clock in the morning, separate.
5 From the regular services.
Wow.
And when I first started,it was only five.
However, I also preach on the streetcorners to any African I can find.
And within a year, therewas more than 40 of us.
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And that's when we startedto experience problems in St.
George's during the regularservices, because we'd go to
the regular services as well.
But because our numbers increased,they became very uncomfortable
and with sometimes we justhad to stand along the walls.
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And on one particular Sunday,it was time for prayer.
We're kneeling down and praying.
Some of us are kneeling down andpraying in whites only section, at which
point they were violently pulled offtheir knees while they were praying.
In church?
Oh yes, in church.
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And actually, the men who were pulledoff their knees said, , we'll move, but
just let us finish our prayer first.
And they refused to allow them to do that.
, and Absalom Jones was one of theones that was violently yanked off
his knees while he was praying.
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Which, of course, prompted a walkout.
And we started to see what we could doto have another way to worship, because
clearly this was not going to work.
Because they were regarding us asnot being equals in the house of God.
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Bishop Allen, this reminds me of thatline in Scripture that, and I know
you know exactly where it is, whereit says if somebody is praying, but
they're praying where you want to pray,you're supposed to grab them and throw
them out of the way and pray there.
Is
that, did I get that right?
Well, the Scripture that I'm familiarwith is has to do more with, If somebody
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comes into the church and they'redressed very fancy, it's not right for
you to treat them differently than apoor person that comes into the church.
You are supposed to treat them Equally,you're not supposed to judge that this
one with the fine clothing is a betterperson and surely the Africans, well,
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we, some of us could dress prettywell, but as a general rule, we were
not dressed to the same level, butthat wasn't even the biggest issue.
The issue was the color of the skin.
The color of the skin madeus to be less of a being.
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There's a quote that I read thatI'm, I want to read this and see
if maybe you said this, and I thinkthis is fantastic because I remember
in one of these conversations with,I even, I may have been speaking
with a slave owner at one point.
I can't remember who I was talkingto, but he basically said something
along the lines of that in this churchthey went to is a really big church.
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And you had the free blacks sittingin one portion of the church and the
enslaved blacks sitting in a differentsection of the church and the two
would not co mingle like one was betterthan the other, which just amazes me.
And so then I see this quote,which I think this came from you.
You'll have to tell me.
And it was, we will never separateourselves voluntarily from the
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slave population in this country.
They are our brethren.
Which is the exact opposite ofwhat was happening in that church.
Is that from you?
Yes it is.
I helped to draft that statement.
It actually happened that therewas a meeting held in my church in
the year 1817 to discuss somethingcalled the colonization plan.
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There was an organization calledthe American Colonization Society.
And the idea was that there were manywhites who wanted to get rid of all
Of the free blacks in this country.
So the idea was to convince Africansto voluntarily agree to leave this
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country and go to a colony in Africa.
And in 1817, I held ameeting to discuss this.
And we presented the ideato 3, 000 Africans there.
And we voted, do we wantto accept this plan?
And the answer was, No, unanimously,and I helped to draft a statement
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that went basically as follows.
Whereas our ancestors, not of choice, werethe first successful cultivators of the
wilds of America, we, their descendants,feel ourselves entitled to participate
in the blessings of her luxuriant soil,manured with their sweat and blood.
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We will never voluntarilyseparate ourselves from the
slave population of this country.
They are our brethren by thetithes of sanguinity, blood
tithes, of suffering, and of wrong.
So, yeah, we had an affinity forthem, so we rejected the idea to
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just leave the enslaved behind.
What a strange proposition for them tosay You know, anybody that's free, we
want you to leave, so you're so freethat we don't want you here anymore,
and I'm sure if the tables were turnedand they said, look, obviously you don't
want to live together and that's fine.
Why don't we stay and you leave?
They'd say, Well, that's crazy.
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You know what I mean?
And yet they want you
to leave your home.
Well, yeah, the thing is that threeafrican americans say this is our home.
We're born here.
So you We want this to be our home, butthe whites in the South certainly don't
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want to see free African Americans walkingaround because the enslaved will look at
them and say, Hey, I want to be free too.
And they We're concernedthere would be insurrections.
So for the white slave owners,they definitely want free
Africans from their territory.
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In the North, you had something notexactly the same, but you know what?
You Africans, you're a lazypeople, you're an evil people,
and we don't want you here.
And, you had people like ThomasJefferson, he was quoted as
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saying, Let the oceans separatethe black race from the white race.
The white race because he didn'tbelieve the Africans were equal and
you had people like James Madison whoand Senator Henry Clay, those kinds
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of people were pushing for this idea.
Let's get these free Africans out of here.
They're an inferior people and reallythey're causing problems in our society.
And I can tell you that, there wereQuakers who supported this idea of, Hey,
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let's get the free Africans outta here.
Did you have otherproblems with the Quakers?
Well, when we walked out.
of St.
George's, we really didn't have a place tomeet, and eventually the Quakers allowed
us to use an African school for meeting.
And because it was in a Quaker facility,they required that when we would
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have times of worship, We would haveto do it according to their style.
And the rule was, 15 minutes,no one must say a word.
And then after that, people can justrandomly stand up and say something
they feel that should be said.
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And in addition to that, Quakersdo not believe in singing hymns.
, I thought this was strange becauseI was used to , services where
there was preaching and there wasteaching and people saying praises.
So I became very disenchanted withthese kinds of meetings it seemed
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like Africans were drifting to.
And , I made it publicly knownthat no, this is not the right way.
for us to worship.
It's just not good.
And for that I was read out of meeting.
That's how Quakers tell you, you'renot welcome in our meetings anymore.
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What does that mean, read out of meetings?
They stand in the front of thecongregation and they explain that
such and such an individual is nolonger welcome to meet with us and
to be part of what we're doing.
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Because they have gone outside ofwhat we believe is proper behavior.
And because I was advocating foranother kind of worship service,
they read me out of meeting.
And this had the agreement ofthe other Africans as well.
And so they're publiclyexiling you from the meeting.
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That's right.
However, but that didn'tseparate me from those Africans.
I kept very close contact with them.
Because I believe it wouldonly be a matter of time.
Before they would agree with me thatno, this is not the way to worship.
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It is strange.
We need to have a style that we are morecomfortable with, not this Quaker way.
So
what happened next then?
So we're still not at theMother Bethel Methodist.
No.
We're still not there.
In 1791, 1792, the other Africansagreed with me and we realized we
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needed to start an independent Africanand we began fundraising they
actually entrusted me to find a site.
For the African church.
I found it at six in Lombard.
They didn't like that site.
Because you see, many of thosefree Africans, they're business
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people, and they're prettywealthy, and they want status.
The site that I found was right inthe middle of an African neighborhood,
and they didn't like that.
So they found another site Near5th and Walnut, because that's
right near Independence Hall.
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Very prominent location.
And they decided they wanted that locationinstead of the one that I had gone.
So I said, I'm not givingup on that location.
The Africans voted and they decidedthey wanted to be Episcopal.
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And they asked me to be the leader.
And I refuse.
If you're familiar with theEpiscopal style of worship, it
has a lot of pomp and ceremony init, a lot of high, fancy talking.
Oh, you'd love that.
And I did not think this was the bestapproach for Africans, newly freed,
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no education, no fancy clothes.
And they gave a simple message.
You're a sinner.
You're going to hell.
You need Christ.
He's your savior.
And so that's why I refuse.
to accept leadership of that church, butI maintained cordial relations with them.
Two weeks later, I started my ownchurch at the location that I found it.
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I see.
And so the man who I can'tsay his name Absalom, was he?
Yeah, Absalom Jones.
Yes, you see, Absalom Jones and Iwanted Methodist style of worship.
However, they were outvoted by the otherAfricans who preferred the Episcopal
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style because many of them were familiarwith Christ's Church, where George
Washington worshipped, where , BenjaminFranklin worshipped, John and Betsy Ross.
And they learned the gospel there, andsome of them even got baptized there, but
not to be an equal member in that church.
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So they decided theywanted to be Episcopal.
Absalom Jones agreed.
To lead that church, but I would not,because again, I did not think this was
the best match for Africans in this city.
They didn't have educationand fancy clothes like many of
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those other Africans that voted.
You were thinking it mightturn them away instead of pull
them in.
Yes!
They're not going tounderstand what's going on.
If you go and look at an Episcopalservice, it's like a Catholic service,
there's a lot of walking aroundand processions and the bells are
ringing and all this other stuff.
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I felt, no, let me just tell these peopleyou're a sinner and you're going to
hell, and you need Christ as a savior.
And let's go do some stuff that's useful.
Yeah, rather than all the pomp andceremony and fancy clothes and fancy talk.
. I think the first year, the EpiscopalChurch, they had like 400 members.
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Me, my first year, I had 20.
I had an old blacksmith shopthat I dragged onto the premise.
However, within the first couple years mymembership began to equal their membership
and then now in 1830 I've got about 3,000 members and I'm in the same location.
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They have far less than that and theyactually had to give up the location
of the first site for their church.
So,
let's say that I was a youngblack man with a family, ? I
just moved to the town, right?
And you're in Philadelphia, right?
Right.
Okay.
And so I just moved toPhiladelphia, I don't know,
from somewhere south, let's say.
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And um, young man, I'm 25,I've got three kids and a wife.
I've been married for five years.
When I come to your church whatam I getting from your church?
What does it feel like forme to come into your church?
Well, you're getting an atmosphere whereThe objective of the church is to spread
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the gospel and to build one another upin the truth and in the word of God,
you're going to get the idea that.
You are loved by God.
God's got a plan for your life.
These are his ways.
We need to walk according to his ways, andwe need to accept Christ as our servant.
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The typical membership in my churchhad kind of a broad range to it.
I would say it went from thevery poor to people who were
maybe somewhere in between.
The Episcopal Church, St.
Thomas African Episcopal Church,that appealed a lot more to the more
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wealthy Africans, the ones that hada little bit more education, the ones
that had a little bit more money.
So in my church, it accommodated awide range of people, whereas the
African Episcopal Church seemedto be more targeted for those that
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had the education and the money.
So what
happens if I come to yourchurch and I can't read?
Well, it would not be alone.
Most of the people that came to mychurch in the early years Could not read.
, I did start a school.
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For Africans in my church so thatpeople could learn to read and a lot of
times when we had, voting on differentissues, people couldn't sign their
names, but people could just make an X.
And it was my hope that over time.
More and more Africans would beeducated because I saw education
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as being extremely important.
Did you teach yourself to read , ordid you , learn to read in the
church when you were young?
I learned to read in thechurch . You remember that African
Methodist, church School?
. That's where I learned.
I was allowed to go on a weekly basis.
And, of course, going once a week,there's a lot of self study involved.
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So I learned how to learn.
I took what materials and educationI had access to, and I did my best to
supplement it the best way I could.
And I was fairly successful.
Somebody taught you howto fish, it sounds like.
Instead of giving you a fish.
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. I appreciate it to be encouragedto be independent and to learn for
myself, because I think the worstthing in the world is to think that
you are learning the Bible based onwhat somebody is telling you versus
being able to read it for yourselfand know for sure what it says.
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Let's talk about BenjaminRush for a minute.
I don't know a lot about BenjaminRush, but when the yellow fever
epidemic broke out, he made theassertion, , that people with dark
skin could not get yellow fever.
, is that correct?
That is correct.
Is that true?
Dr.
Benjamin Rush actually was instrumental.
Would you tell us who
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he is?
. He is a founding father of this country.
He is a sign.
of the Declaration of Independence.
He is a very famous doctorhere in Philadelphia.
. And my experience with him during yellowfever was that he taught Me and many other
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Africans, something called phlebotomy.
Are you familiar with phlebotomy?
Taking blood?
Yes, because he believed that if you weresick, the reason was you had bad blood.
So what we need to do is takesome of that blood out and to also
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purge you from any food as well.
So I was trained along with manyother Africans during the yellow
fever epidemic to treat patients withphlebotomy, and I got deathly ill.
I was September of 1793,I got extremely ill.
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but I do believe there were a lotof people praying for me and I
actually got some pretty good careand I was able to recover from that.
And , we did it knowingthat we were not immune.
We died at the same rate as thewhite population of this country.
Roughly 10 percent of us died, whichis actually miraculous, considering
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the fact That we, the Free AfricanSociety, an organization that was
formed, was contacted by the mayor whopleaded with us for our help in looking
after the sick and burying the dead.
So that's what we did.
We looked after the sickand we buried the dead.
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Putting our own lives at riskfor the service of the community.
So, basically what his plan was, is thatsomebody would come in with yellow fever
and he would say, Oh, this is terrible.
We got to get somebody that has darkskin because they can't get this.
And then you guys, how much doyou just draw an amount of blood
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that you thought it was the rightamount that would make them healthy?
That was it?
Yeah, the situation really was thatwhen the yellow fever epidemic hit,
if you could leave this city, you did.
And that included doctors and nurses,the government, they all left.
And so now there's nobody left behind tolook after the sick and to bury the dead.
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Oh, I see.
So the Mayor of Philadelphia sent usmembers of the Free African Society
a letter begging us for our help.
And although we knew we were not immune,we agreed to do it as a service to
God and the service to the community.
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And you'd think.
that everyone wouldappreciate what we did.
However, that was not the case.
A gentleman by the name of MatthewCarey, who had a large printing press
operation, began to publish pamphletsciting cases where there were Africans
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who actually robbed people that were sick.
And they said that they charged exorbitantfees to help those that were in need.
Thousands of copies ofthis pamphlet went out.
And it created an impression that weAfricans were just bad people that were
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taking advantage of a horrible situation.
So, Absalom Jones and I Publish a pamphletand it was the first publication of any
Africans in this country rebutting thisbecause we wanted to give the people
more than stories that were bad withstories that were good because many
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Africans worked, put their lives atrisk and didn't even accept one dollar.
And in fact, the free African society.
Kept a very close accounting of whatwas spent and what was taken in,
and we spent more than we took inbecause we didn't turn anybody away.
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If anybody needed to be buried and theyneeded to have a coffin, we went and we
spent the money, whether we actually hadthe money or not, we were actually at
the end of the Yellow Fever epidemic.
You've mentioned the Free AfricanSociety many different times, , I
understand the words, but I'm notcrystal clear what this organization is.
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Does this organization have a buildingthat they meet in, like a church?
Let me explain what happened.
When I came here in 1786 and I sawthe terrible conditions that the
newly freed Africans were living in,they needed help just to survive.
So Absalom Jones and I createdan organization . It was called
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the Free African Society.
And the purpose of that society is thatwe free Africans who are in the city
and were working, contributed money.
On a monthly basis to help outthose in our community that were
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desperately in need, most particularlythe widows and the orphans.
And we hired a Quaker to keep the books, to keep account of the monies that we took
in and spent because we realized Quakershad a reputation of being extremely.
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people.
So we figured if we hired a Quaker tolook after the financial affairs of the
Free African Society, people would feelcomfortable contributing money for the
things that we were trying to accomplish.
That's a smart move.
That's you thinking well ahead ofthe problems before they develop.
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Oh yes we actually form the Free AfricanSociety, in the preamble, it says
that we Africans of that time and ourdescendants do unanimously agree to work
together for the needs of our community.
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We didn't want to have a situation wherewe had to wait for people outside of
our community to come into our communityand provide the help that people
that were in desperate need needed.
again.
I'm sorry.
So we intended for the Free AfricanSociety to be an ongoing thing that even
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the descendants that we would have wouldpick up and realize we have to address the
needs of our community and not on othersto come into our community to do that.
. When you purchased yourfreedom, that was in 1780.
And when
you're separated.
1783, 1780, 1783.
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Okay, somewhere, okay, in that window.
And when you were separated fromyour family at 17 you were, that
was like 1777, I think, and the FreeAfrican American Society was 10 years
after that, 1787, somewhere in that.
So, you've got this window of time,this 10, 15 years, where you're doing
a lot of stuff, and we're in themiddle of the American Revolution.
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So, how did that affect what you were
doing?
Well, Right around the time I gotmy freedom was when the war ended.
So during the war, as I mentioned,I did do some things just in
support of the revolution.
But a lot of my time, I spent preaching.
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, because there's this large group.
of free Africans in this city, well overa thousand, probably close to 2, 000.
And the white churchespretty much ignored them.
And I saw, oh yes, theypretty much ignored them.
So I saw the Africans, the newlyfreed Africans, they were like
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sheep that had no one to lead themin the right way in this society.
So I spent most of my time preaching.
And as I mentioned, I did havebusinesses that I was attending to,
fundraising for African churches,and being involved in church affairs.
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So I spent a lot of time doing that.
And I wanted to mention that,Even after I had my church, it
was not an independent church.
You see, because in 1796, I signedletters of incorporation into the
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Methodist church, so basically.
I signed it not realizing that what Ijust did was I signed over the property
rights of that church to the Methodists.
And in addition to that, by signingletters of incorporation, I was
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basically saying I am under theauthority Of the Methodist church
leadership, and that became a problembecause they wanted to dominate
and control everything that we did.
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In our, now you see, I was notan ordained minister in the
Methodist denomination in 1799.
I became an ordained deacon, but Idid not have the spiritual authority to
serve a communion or to baptize people.
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I had to get that.
from the MethodistChurch leadership at St.
George's.
And it got to the point where theywould tell us we couldn't even hold Any
services unless we had their permissionto do so, and that prompted me in
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1807 to do something to get two thirdsvote of the African members that were
in the church to perform somethingcalled the African supplement, which
gave control of the church property.
And decisions in the churchto the African trustee.
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As you can imagine, the Methodistswere less than pleased with that idea.
Right, because they wanted control.
They absolutely wanted total control.
After we did the supplement, they said,okay, you have to get ministers from us.
It's going to cost you 600 a year.
And we said we can't pay 600 andwe're able to get them down to 200.
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But then we still had a problem withthem wanting to control everything.
And we really couldn't come to agreementon those things, and it got to the point
where the Methodist leadership wouldtry to force their way into the church
and preach whenever they felt like it.
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And we were not happy with this,and we physically stopped them.
The Methodists became so enragedat this, in 1815, they threw
us out of our church building.
And they put it up for public auction.
But because, as I mentioned before,I had money, I was able to go and buy
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the church back off of public auction.
Then, they File a case against us atthe Pennsylvania Supreme Court because
they said they tried to argue that theoriginal letters of cooperation still
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held and that property could not betransferred to us, even though we had
just bought it at auction and we hadto stay completely under their control.
However, The Supreme Court ruled in ourfavor, and we were finally independent.
And after getting independence, that'swhen we decided we need to unite
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the African churches throughout thecountry, and we formed the denomination
where I became the first bishop.
. Here you are just trying to do good.
That's all you're trying to do.
Nobody can argue with that.
And you're just trying tolift people up and do good.
And it's just, every day it's a new fight.
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to do
good.
Yes.
Yes.
This is part of the Christian life.
You struggle against the forces ofthis world, which are controlled by
the devil who hates God's people.
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And you fight, and you struggle,and you hold on to your faith.
And you go as far as you can go andyou do whatever it is that you can do.
You take the insults, you take allthe oppression, you take all of that,
knowing that if you maintain yourselfin a right relationship to God,
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ultimately, You will be victorious.
Good advice.
, where do you stand onthe United States now?
Are you a patriot or not somuch or where do you fall?
Well, I have to be honest with you.
put yourself in my position for a second.
Here you are in the United States,1790, there's a new government in place.
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They start passing laws.
One of the laws they passed issomething called the Naturalization Act.
The Naturalization Act basicallysays you have to be in the country.
You had to have been in the countryfor so many years and the skin
color had to be white or you couldnot be a citizen of this country.
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by federal law.
And in 1792, they passed the MilitiaAct, which said Unless the color of
your skin is white, you may not servein the armed forces of this country.
And as time is going on, RememberI talked to you about the
American Colonization Society?
, I actually held meetings at my house.
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Because for a time I said, Hey, maybethis is what Africans need to do.
Free, and that didn't work out.
However you've heard about therevolution that happened in Haiti.
Clear that up.
Haiti successfully revoltedagainst the French and got
independence from the French.
(40:04):
So I would say around the1820s, the Haitians government.
Reached out to African Americans inthis country and said, we will pay
for you to transport to come to Haiti.
We'll give you land when you get here andlet's build together an African nation.
(40:28):
And I can tell you, I supported this idea.
In fact, I gathered the name of 500Africans who wanted to go to Haiti
because We began to feel this is theonly way we're going to have freedom.
In fact, several membersfrom my church to Haiti.
(40:51):
So we began to look outsideof this country as a way to
have freedom for our people.
And I can tell you and this year.
I have organized an organization,it's called the Society
of Free Persons of Color.
(41:15):
And I pulled together Africanleaders from all over this country.
You see, because we were facingincreasing violence and oppression.
We knew what had happened in Ohio.
In the previous years, free Africansin Ohio were required to post a
(41:41):
500 bond for their good behavior.
In addition to that, What?
Hold on.
They have to post it for their good?
I don't understand.
Clarify.
Meaning, in order for you to remain inOhio, As an African, you had to go and
(42:01):
pay 500 for a bomb as a surety thatyou were going to be a good person and
you weren't going to cause trouble.
That's ridiculous.
And in addition to that, we had heard in1829, there was a communities of free
(42:22):
Africans that were experienced riotsfrom whites who wanted to destroy their
houses and destroy their businesses.
Several of them had to fleeto Canada for their lives.
So when I organized this organizationof free Africans in 1830 at my
(42:49):
church, we had three objectives.
One was to improve ourlot in this country.
Which included, see, can we purchase someland and have more ownership of land?
But the other thing that we wanted todo was establish a settlement in Upper
(43:10):
Canada, Ontario, where those Africanswho are in this country who were tired
of the oppression and they were tired ofthe relations, they could go to Canada.
Because Canada, at that time,Was accepting enslaved and free
(43:33):
Africans into their countrywhere they could become citizens.
So we started to look atother options beyond country.
Because you weren't getting the supportthat was reasonable based on the good that
you were trying to do.
Exactly.
(43:54):
We're not seeing any movement towardsequality, even having the right to
vote, because in fact, in Pennsylvania,right around this time, there's already
being debate to officially deny Africanscitizenship In Pennsylvania before
(44:17):
it was kind of well, maybe it's not.
We're not exactly sure.
But now this talk they wantedto officially exclude us from
citizenship in Pennsylvania.
We were already excludedfrom citizenship federally.
And they wanted to add to that.
(44:39):
And in fact, the Pennsylvanialegislature began to support the
idea that free Africans should go.
I don't think that anybody withan open mind would look at this
situation and think that it wasunreasonable that you were looking
for a different home, consideringthe way that you were being treated.
, it makes complete sense.
(45:01):
And it makes me want to ask this question.
What role do women play in your church?
I want to tell you my role of my women.
I was married twice.
My first wife, her name was Flora.
She was a godly woman.
Godly woman who really supported andgave me encouragement during the worst
(45:24):
times, when the times where I needed that.
Very unfortunately, she is a sicklywoman, and we never had children.
We were married for 10 years.
, and I wanted to mention , remember Isaid I had rental properties, I could
trust her to go out and collect therents and to manage those properties.
(45:48):
So I didn't have to beconcerned with that.
I had so many other things.
Now I remarried in 1801and a woman named Sarah.
And she, again, was a godly woman, andI was able to have six children, she,
also, I could trust to send out and manageour rental properties and to collect the
(46:13):
rents and to manage those properties.
You worked side
by side.
We worked side by side and I can tellyou, as a preacher, sometimes we'd
go out on campaigns and the clotheswould just start to fall apart.
And the one day I came in and she said,you are not leaving this house again.
(46:35):
Looking like that and she gatheredtogether all of the women and they
made sure that we ministers had properdress . So I look at women in my
experience with women to be extremelysupportive in what we were doing.
(46:59):
And I don't know how I couldhave made it without the
support of the women in my life.
Were
you involved with the Freemasons as well?
Yes three years after we startedthe African Church, we started an
African Lodge, Freemason Lodge.
, we looked at places like Christchurch.
(47:21):
Christchurch has George Washington, Dr.
Benjamin Franklin, Bishop William White.
They are all Freemasons.
So we saw what Christchurchwas, sort of as a model.
Because these were churches.
That had Freemasons in them, veryprominent Freemasons, but for we Africans,
(47:49):
we were not allowed to be Freemasonsbecause Freemasonry is by invitation only.
So when we had our church, we said, Oh,yes, we have ministers and all this, but
boy, why should we be denied Freemasonry?
They tried to deny us to have a church,an independent church, and now they're
(48:15):
trying to deny us of having Freemasonry.
And I didn't know anything aboutFreemasonry until I came to
Philadelphia and I met with otherAfricans here who had been in England.
And when they were in England,the Freemasons there allowed them
(48:36):
to participate in Freemasonry.
And so when we looked and saw howprominent and, the pre masons were, and
it's also a church, we wanted that too.
And we were able to finally get it threeyears later because there was an African
man in Boston by the name of Prince Hall.
(48:58):
And he New, when the British occupied, he met the British there and he became
friends with them , and they wereFreemasons and they granted Prince
Hall the authority to start AfricanFreemasonry in the United States.
(49:19):
And we went there.
And we got permission tohave a Freemason Lodge.
I was treasurer of that organization.
But I can tell you that if you look, Ijust recently wrote an autobiography.
And in that autobiography,I make it very plain.
(49:40):
The way I want to beremembered is as a preacher.
of the gospel.
That's how I want it to be remembered.
And if you look at my autobiography,you'll see there's nothing in
there about Freemasonry becauseAbsalom Jones took Freemasonry
a lot more seriously than I did.
(50:03):
Because eventually I stopped being thetreasurer of the Freemasons, but Absalom
Jones, he became what is called theGrand Master of the Prince Hall or the
African Freemasonry in Philadelphia,and later he actually became the head
(50:25):
of the Freemasons in Pennsylvania.
Incredible.
He went that far
with it, huh?
Oh, he went extremely far with it.
And I can tell you, when he died,Masons have a funeral procession
that they do, or a funeral ceremony.
And I started that ceremony at mychurch, where I delivered a message.
(50:51):
And then we marched to the church thathe led, and I delivered another message.
But again, the primary thingin my life was not Freemasonry.
It was spreading the Gospel.
When you just said that's how you wouldwant to be known as a preacher of the
gospel, that is one question that Iknew that I was never going to ask
(51:13):
you, how you wanted to be rememberedor what you were looking for, because
it's very clear What your goal is.
And I want to tell you, I'm justso thankful for everything that
you have done because it's madea difference in the world that we
live right now for so many people.
And it is the right way tolive the way that you live.
And I'm so thankful for you and Iguess I, as we wrap this up is there
(51:36):
anything else that you'd like to leavemaybe a message for future generations?
Any thoughts you'd
like to say?
Yes.
I think it's so important, when Ifirst started preaching the gospel,
I preached to whites and blacks.
It doesn't matter what the colorof your skin is because I believe
we are all humans and we all shouldlove and care for one another.
(52:04):
And I believe that if this countrycan get to the point where We see one
another as made in the image of God.
And if we all walk by faith in JesusChrist, this country can be united and
(52:27):
this country will stand the test of time.
But my concern is that if we remaindivided, Christ warned us a house
divided against itself will not stand.
Bishop Allen,
I thank you so much for your timetoday and all of your wisdom.
(52:49):
And I wish you the absolutebest in the future.
God bless you.
And I thank you for this opportunity.
And it was really a pleasureto spend time with you.
Richard Allen was one of the good guys.
He made money, lots of it, but he didn'tget power hungry or forget about those
who were not doing as well as he was.
He was always trying to liftthose people up around him.
(53:11):
He was practical withoutbeing rude or unfair.
When the United States didn't wantto make him a citizen or give him
rights, he worked around the rulesafter all, nothing said you had
to be a citizen to own property.
Once he felt that those changeswould never happen though.
He gathered his people and said, Hey,if they don't want us, we can leave.
And when he was called upon to riskhis life by founding father, Dr.
(53:34):
Benjamin Rush.
Who asked him to tend to those dyingor dead from the yellow fever epidemic?
He didn't give it a second thought hedid what had to be done to help his
fellow man from the moment he first sawhis purpose to the last day of his life.
Along the way he inspired people to workhard, be charitable, be resilient, and
(53:55):
always have unwavering, unbreakable faith.
Thanks for listening.
And if you enjoy this episodesubscribing, now we'll give you the
ability to communicate with yourpets and even your house plants.
I'm Tony Dean.
And until next time I'm history.
Welcome back to part two of Richard Allen.
In the last episode, we talked aboutRichard working on the underground
railroad, how he paid for all of hisventures and his approach to talking
a little bit, then doing a lot.
In this episode, he'll tell us howhe had to physically restrain the
Methodist from taking over his church.
(00:49):
And he talks about why he consideredleaving the United States forever.
Absolutely.
And I can tell you when I firstbecame a believer, I spent All of
my free time, reading the Word ofGod, praying, seeking God, listening
(01:10):
for his direction in my life.
You see, because you sayyou are a Christian, that
doesn't make you a Christian.
Because a Christian puts Christ and theWord of God As the first place in their
life, everything else is secondary.
(01:32):
And I believe that if peoplewholeheartedly come to the faith,
and by their faith they do thingsthat please God, this is the
path that we need to follow.
So let's talk about the church,the African Methodist Episcopal
(01:54):
Church, is that what it's
called?
The AME?
Yes it came to be called , Mother BethelAfrican Methodist Episcopal Church.
Mother Because it's the mother churchof the denomination that was formed.
And it got the name Bethel because aminister who was visiting with us said,
(02:18):
Boy, I hope this church will be a realBethel for the Africans in this city.
Bethel is a Hebrew wordthat means house of God.
. So the AME and the Mother BethelMethodist Church are the same.
(02:39):
Yes, it, the whole title is Mother BethelAfrican Methodist Episcopal Church.
I
see.
Okay, now I'm
with you.
Okay.
Some people get confusedwhen they see Episcopal.
That's not the denomination.
Episcopal, in this context, simplymeans that have bishops that we
(03:03):
assign to run church affairs.
Of which you are the first, correct?
Yes, that's correct.
they had the first vote,I was not selected.
That's number one
they didn't like your
attitude?
No, it wasn't about attitude.
The one who was selected wasa man by the name of Coker,
(03:25):
Reverend Coker from Baltimore.
And he was young.
He was younger than I was.
He was a very fiery preacher.
And He was chosen.
However, shortly after he was chosenor nominated, he turned it down.
Because I really believe that hefelt that I would make a better
(03:49):
bishop or leader than he wouldbecause I had a lot more experience.
So tell me a little bit abouthow that came into being.
I also, and I don't know about thisperson, but as I read about you, I
keep hearing the name Absalom Jones.
Did
you start it with you?
Well, when I came to Philadelphiaat the invitation of St.
(04:11):
George's Methodist Church inthe year 1786, and I came to St.
George's Church, Absalom Jones was amember, an African member of that church.
And what happened was they would say tome that I could hold services for Africans
(04:32):
at 5 o'clock in the morning, separate.
5 From the regular services.
Wow.
And when I first started,it was only five.
However, I also preach on the streetcorners to any African I can find.
And within a year, therewas more than 40 of us.
(04:53):
And that's when we startedto experience problems in St.
George's during the regularservices, because we'd go to
the regular services as well.
But because our numbers increased,they became very uncomfortable
and with sometimes we justhad to stand along the walls.
(05:15):
And on one particular Sunday,it was time for prayer.
We're kneeling down and praying.
Some of us are kneeling down andpraying in whites only section, at which
point they were violently pulled offtheir knees while they were praying.
In church?
Oh yes, in church.
(05:37):
And actually, the men who were pulledoff their knees said, , we'll move, but
just let us finish our prayer first.
And they refused to allow them to do that.
, and Absalom Jones was one of theones that was violently yanked off
his knees while he was praying.
(05:58):
Which, of course, prompted a walkout.
And we started to see what we could doto have another way to worship, because
clearly this was not going to work.
Because they were regarding us asnot being equals in the house of God.
(06:19):
Bishop Allen, this reminds me of thatline in Scripture that, and I know
you know exactly where it is, whereit says if somebody is praying, but
they're praying where you want to pray,you're supposed to grab them and throw
them out of the way and pray there.
Is
that, did I get that right?
Well, the Scripture that I'm familiarwith is has to do more with, If somebody
(06:40):
comes into the church and they'redressed very fancy, it's not right for
you to treat them differently than apoor person that comes into the church.
You are supposed to treat them Equally,you're not supposed to judge that this
one with the fine clothing is a betterperson and surely the Africans, well,
(07:04):
we, some of us could dress prettywell, but as a general rule, we were
not dressed to the same level, butthat wasn't even the biggest issue.
The issue was the color of the skin.
The color of the skin madeus to be less of a being.
(07:27):
There's a quote that I read thatI'm, I want to read this and see
if maybe you said this, and I thinkthis is fantastic because I remember
in one of these conversations with,I even, I may have been speaking
with a slave owner at one point.
I can't remember who I was talkingto, but he basically said something
along the lines of that in this churchthey went to is a really big church.
(07:48):
And you had the free blacks sittingin one portion of the church and the
enslaved blacks sitting in a differentsection of the church and the two
would not co mingle like one was betterthan the other, which just amazes me.
And so then I see this quote,which I think this came from you.
You'll have to tell me.
And it was, we will never separateourselves voluntarily from the
(08:11):
slave population in this country.
They are our brethren.
Which is the exact opposite ofwhat was happening in that church.
Is that from you?
Yes it is.
I helped to draft that statement.
It actually happened that therewas a meeting held in my church in
the year 1817 to discuss somethingcalled the colonization plan.
(08:34):
There was an organization calledthe American Colonization Society.
And the idea was that there were manywhites who wanted to get rid of all
Of the free blacks in this country.
So the idea was to convince Africansto voluntarily agree to leave this
(09:02):
country and go to a colony in Africa.
And in 1817, I held ameeting to discuss this.
And we presented the ideato 3, 000 Africans there.
And we voted, do we wantto accept this plan?
And the answer was, No, unanimously,and I helped to draft a statement
(09:28):
that went basically as follows.
Whereas our ancestors, not of choice, werethe first successful cultivators of the
wilds of America, we, their descendants,feel ourselves entitled to participate
in the blessings of her luxuriant soil,manured with their sweat and blood.
(09:49):
We will never voluntarilyseparate ourselves from the
slave population of this country.
They are our brethren by thetithes of sanguinity, blood
tithes, of suffering, and of wrong.
So, yeah, we had an affinity forthem, so we rejected the idea to
(10:12):
just leave the enslaved behind.
What a strange proposition for them tosay You know, anybody that's free, we
want you to leave, so you're so freethat we don't want you here anymore,
and I'm sure if the tables were turnedand they said, look, obviously you don't
want to live together and that's fine.
Why don't we stay and you leave?
They'd say, Well, that's crazy.
(10:34):
You know what I mean?
And yet they want you
to leave your home.
Well, yeah, the thing is that threeafrican americans say this is our home.
We're born here.
So you We want this to be our home, butthe whites in the South certainly don't
(10:56):
want to see free African Americans walkingaround because the enslaved will look at
them and say, Hey, I want to be free too.
And they We're concernedthere would be insurrections.
So for the white slave owners,they definitely want free
Africans from their territory.
(11:18):
In the North, you had something notexactly the same, but you know what?
You Africans, you're a lazypeople, you're an evil people,
and we don't want you here.
And, you had people like ThomasJefferson, he was quoted as
(11:41):
saying, Let the oceans separatethe black race from the white race.
The white race because he didn'tbelieve the Africans were equal and
you had people like James Madison whoand Senator Henry Clay, those kinds
(12:02):
of people were pushing for this idea.
Let's get these free Africans out of here.
They're an inferior people and reallythey're causing problems in our society.
And I can tell you that, there wereQuakers who supported this idea of, Hey,
(12:24):
let's get the free Africans outta here.
Did you have otherproblems with the Quakers?
Well, when we walked out.
of St.
George's, we really didn't have a place tomeet, and eventually the Quakers allowed
us to use an African school for meeting.
And because it was in a Quaker facility,they required that when we would
(12:50):
have times of worship, We would haveto do it according to their style.
And the rule was, 15 minutes,no one must say a word.
And then after that, people can justrandomly stand up and say something
they feel that should be said.
(13:12):
And in addition to that, Quakersdo not believe in singing hymns.
, I thought this was strange becauseI was used to , services where
there was preaching and there wasteaching and people saying praises.
So I became very disenchanted withthese kinds of meetings it seemed
(13:34):
like Africans were drifting to.
And , I made it publicly knownthat no, this is not the right way.
for us to worship.
It's just not good.
And for that I was read out of meeting.
That's how Quakers tell you, you'renot welcome in our meetings anymore.
(13:55):
What does that mean, read out of meetings?
They stand in the front of thecongregation and they explain that
such and such an individual is nolonger welcome to meet with us and
to be part of what we're doing.
(14:15):
Because they have gone outside ofwhat we believe is proper behavior.
And because I was advocating foranother kind of worship service,
they read me out of meeting.
And this had the agreement ofthe other Africans as well.
And so they're publiclyexiling you from the meeting.
(14:38):
That's right.
However, but that didn'tseparate me from those Africans.
I kept very close contact with them.
Because I believe it wouldonly be a matter of time.
Before they would agree with me thatno, this is not the way to worship.
(15:02):
It is strange.
We need to have a style that we are morecomfortable with, not this Quaker way.
So
what happened next then?
So we're still not at theMother Bethel Methodist.
No.
We're still not there.
In 1791, 1792, the other Africansagreed with me and we realized we
(15:28):
needed to start an independent Africanand we began fundraising they
actually entrusted me to find a site.
For the African church.
I found it at six in Lombard.
They didn't like that site.
Because you see, many of thosefree Africans, they're business
(15:50):
people, and they're prettywealthy, and they want status.
The site that I found was right inthe middle of an African neighborhood,
and they didn't like that.
So they found another site Near5th and Walnut, because that's
right near Independence Hall.
(16:12):
Very prominent location.
And they decided they wanted that locationinstead of the one that I had gone.
So I said, I'm not givingup on that location.
The Africans voted and they decidedthey wanted to be Episcopal.
(16:32):
And they asked me to be the leader.
And I refuse.
If you're familiar with theEpiscopal style of worship, it
has a lot of pomp and ceremony init, a lot of high, fancy talking.
Oh, you'd love that.
And I did not think this was the bestapproach for Africans, newly freed,
(16:54):
no education, no fancy clothes.
And they gave a simple message.
You're a sinner.
You're going to hell.
You need Christ.
He's your savior.
And so that's why I refuse.
to accept leadership of that church, butI maintained cordial relations with them.
Two weeks later, I started my ownchurch at the location that I found it.
(17:20):
I see.
And so the man who I can'tsay his name Absalom, was he?
Yeah, Absalom Jones.
Yes, you see, Absalom Jones and Iwanted Methodist style of worship.
However, they were outvoted by the otherAfricans who preferred the Episcopal
(17:42):
style because many of them were familiarwith Christ's Church, where George
Washington worshipped, where , BenjaminFranklin worshipped, John and Betsy Ross.
And they learned the gospel there, andsome of them even got baptized there, but
not to be an equal member in that church.
(18:02):
So they decided theywanted to be Episcopal.
Absalom Jones agreed.
To lead that church, but I would not,because again, I did not think this was
the best match for Africans in this city.
They didn't have educationand fancy clothes like many of
(18:24):
those other Africans that voted.
You were thinking it mightturn them away instead of pull
them in.
Yes!
They're not going tounderstand what's going on.
If you go and look at an Episcopalservice, it's like a Catholic service,
there's a lot of walking aroundand processions and the bells are
ringing and all this other stuff.
(18:46):
I felt, no, let me just tell these peopleyou're a sinner and you're going to
hell, and you need Christ as a savior.
And let's go do some stuff that's useful.
Yeah, rather than all the pomp andceremony and fancy clothes and fancy talk.
. I think the first year, the EpiscopalChurch, they had like 400 members.
(19:09):
Me, my first year, I had 20.
I had an old blacksmith shopthat I dragged onto the premise.
However, within the first couple years mymembership began to equal their membership
and then now in 1830 I've got about 3,000 members and I'm in the same location.
(19:30):
They have far less than that and theyactually had to give up the location
of the first site for their church.
So,
let's say that I was a youngblack man with a family, ? I
just moved to the town, right?
And you're in Philadelphia, right?
Right.
Okay.
And so I just moved toPhiladelphia, I don't know,
from somewhere south, let's say.
(19:52):
And um, young man, I'm 25,I've got three kids and a wife.
I've been married for five years.
When I come to your church whatam I getting from your church?
What does it feel like forme to come into your church?
Well, you're getting an atmosphere whereThe objective of the church is to spread
(20:13):
the gospel and to build one another upin the truth and in the word of God,
you're going to get the idea that.
You are loved by God.
God's got a plan for your life.
These are his ways.
We need to walk according to his ways, andwe need to accept Christ as our servant.
(20:38):
The typical membership in my churchhad kind of a broad range to it.
I would say it went from thevery poor to people who were
maybe somewhere in between.
The Episcopal Church, St.
Thomas African Episcopal Church,that appealed a lot more to the more
(21:03):
wealthy Africans, the ones that hada little bit more education, the ones
that had a little bit more money.
So in my church, it accommodated awide range of people, whereas the
African Episcopal Church seemedto be more targeted for those that
(21:26):
had the education and the money.
So what
happens if I come to yourchurch and I can't read?
Well, it would not be alone.
Most of the people that came to mychurch in the early years Could not read.
, I did start a school.
(21:47):
For Africans in my church so thatpeople could learn to read and a lot of
times when we had, voting on differentissues, people couldn't sign their
names, but people could just make an X.
And it was my hope that over time.
More and more Africans would beeducated because I saw education
(22:13):
as being extremely important.
Did you teach yourself to read , ordid you , learn to read in the
church when you were young?
I learned to read in thechurch . You remember that African
Methodist, church School?
. That's where I learned.
I was allowed to go on a weekly basis.
And, of course, going once a week,there's a lot of self study involved.
(22:36):
So I learned how to learn.
I took what materials and educationI had access to, and I did my best to
supplement it the best way I could.
And I was fairly successful.
Somebody taught you howto fish, it sounds like.
Instead of giving you a fish.
(22:57):
. I appreciate it to be encouragedto be independent and to learn for
myself, because I think the worstthing in the world is to think that
you are learning the Bible based onwhat somebody is telling you versus
being able to read it for yourselfand know for sure what it says.
(23:22):
Let's talk about BenjaminRush for a minute.
I don't know a lot about BenjaminRush, but when the yellow fever
epidemic broke out, he made theassertion, , that people with dark
skin could not get yellow fever.
, is that correct?
That is correct.
Is that true?
Dr.
Benjamin Rush actually was instrumental.
Would you tell us who
(23:43):
he is?
. He is a founding father of this country.
He is a sign.
of the Declaration of Independence.
He is a very famous doctorhere in Philadelphia.
. And my experience with him during yellowfever was that he taught Me and many other
(24:07):
Africans, something called phlebotomy.
Are you familiar with phlebotomy?
Taking blood?
Yes, because he believed that if you weresick, the reason was you had bad blood.
So what we need to do is takesome of that blood out and to also
(24:30):
purge you from any food as well.
So I was trained along with manyother Africans during the yellow
fever epidemic to treat patients withphlebotomy, and I got deathly ill.
I was September of 1793,I got extremely ill.
(24:55):
but I do believe there were a lotof people praying for me and I
actually got some pretty good careand I was able to recover from that.
And , we did it knowingthat we were not immune.
We died at the same rate as thewhite population of this country.
Roughly 10 percent of us died, whichis actually miraculous, considering
(25:20):
the fact That we, the Free AfricanSociety, an organization that was
formed, was contacted by the mayor whopleaded with us for our help in looking
after the sick and burying the dead.
So that's what we did.
We looked after the sickand we buried the dead.
(25:40):
Putting our own lives at riskfor the service of the community.
So, basically what his plan was, is thatsomebody would come in with yellow fever
and he would say, Oh, this is terrible.
We got to get somebody that has darkskin because they can't get this.
And then you guys, how much doyou just draw an amount of blood
(26:01):
that you thought it was the rightamount that would make them healthy?
That was it?
Yeah, the situation really was thatwhen the yellow fever epidemic hit,
if you could leave this city, you did.
And that included doctors and nurses,the government, they all left.
And so now there's nobody left behind tolook after the sick and to bury the dead.
(26:28):
Oh, I see.
So the Mayor of Philadelphia sent usmembers of the Free African Society
a letter begging us for our help.
And although we knew we were not immune,we agreed to do it as a service to
God and the service to the community.
(26:52):
And you'd think.
that everyone wouldappreciate what we did.
However, that was not the case.
A gentleman by the name of MatthewCarey, who had a large printing press
operation, began to publish pamphletsciting cases where there were Africans
(27:15):
who actually robbed people that were sick.
And they said that they charged exorbitantfees to help those that were in need.
Thousands of copies ofthis pamphlet went out.
And it created an impression that weAfricans were just bad people that were
(27:40):
taking advantage of a horrible situation.
So, Absalom Jones and I Publish a pamphletand it was the first publication of any
Africans in this country rebutting thisbecause we wanted to give the people
more than stories that were bad withstories that were good because many
(28:07):
Africans worked, put their lives atrisk and didn't even accept one dollar.
And in fact, the free African society.
Kept a very close accounting of whatwas spent and what was taken in,
and we spent more than we took inbecause we didn't turn anybody away.
(28:32):
If anybody needed to be buried and theyneeded to have a coffin, we went and we
spent the money, whether we actually hadthe money or not, we were actually at
the end of the Yellow Fever epidemic.
You've mentioned the Free AfricanSociety many different times, , I
understand the words, but I'm notcrystal clear what this organization is.
(28:57):
Does this organization have a buildingthat they meet in, like a church?
Let me explain what happened.
When I came here in 1786 and I sawthe terrible conditions that the
newly freed Africans were living in,they needed help just to survive.
So Absalom Jones and I createdan organization . It was called
(29:21):
the Free African Society.
And the purpose of that society is thatwe free Africans who are in the city
and were working, contributed money.
On a monthly basis to help outthose in our community that were
(29:42):
desperately in need, most particularlythe widows and the orphans.
And we hired a Quaker to keep the books, to keep account of the monies that we took
in and spent because we realized Quakershad a reputation of being extremely.
(30:07):
people.
So we figured if we hired a Quaker tolook after the financial affairs of the
Free African Society, people would feelcomfortable contributing money for the
things that we were trying to accomplish.
That's a smart move.
That's you thinking well ahead ofthe problems before they develop.
(30:28):
Oh yes we actually form the Free AfricanSociety, in the preamble, it says
that we Africans of that time and ourdescendants do unanimously agree to work
together for the needs of our community.
(30:53):
We didn't want to have a situation wherewe had to wait for people outside of
our community to come into our communityand provide the help that people
that were in desperate need needed.
again.
I'm sorry.
So we intended for the Free AfricanSociety to be an ongoing thing that even
(31:19):
the descendants that we would have wouldpick up and realize we have to address the
needs of our community and not on othersto come into our community to do that.
. When you purchased yourfreedom, that was in 1780.
And when
you're separated.
1783, 1780, 1783.
(31:41):
Okay, somewhere, okay, in that window.
And when you were separated fromyour family at 17 you were, that
was like 1777, I think, and the FreeAfrican American Society was 10 years
after that, 1787, somewhere in that.
So, you've got this window of time,this 10, 15 years, where you're doing
a lot of stuff, and we're in themiddle of the American Revolution.
(32:04):
So, how did that affect what you were
doing?
Well, Right around the time I gotmy freedom was when the war ended.
So during the war, as I mentioned,I did do some things just in
support of the revolution.
But a lot of my time, I spent preaching.
(32:28):
, because there's this large group.
of free Africans in this city, well overa thousand, probably close to 2, 000.
And the white churchespretty much ignored them.
And I saw, oh yes, theypretty much ignored them.
So I saw the Africans, the newlyfreed Africans, they were like
(32:52):
sheep that had no one to lead themin the right way in this society.
So I spent most of my time preaching.
And as I mentioned, I did havebusinesses that I was attending to,
fundraising for African churches,and being involved in church affairs.
(33:18):
So I spent a lot of time doing that.
And I wanted to mention that,Even after I had my church, it
was not an independent church.
You see, because in 1796, I signedletters of incorporation into the
(33:40):
Methodist church, so basically.
I signed it not realizing that what Ijust did was I signed over the property
rights of that church to the Methodists.
And in addition to that, by signingletters of incorporation, I was
(34:00):
basically saying I am under theauthority Of the Methodist church
leadership, and that became a problembecause they wanted to dominate
and control everything that we did.
(34:21):
In our, now you see, I was notan ordained minister in the
Methodist denomination in 1799.
I became an ordained deacon, but Idid not have the spiritual authority to
serve a communion or to baptize people.
(34:44):
I had to get that.
from the MethodistChurch leadership at St.
George's.
And it got to the point where theywould tell us we couldn't even hold Any
services unless we had their permissionto do so, and that prompted me in
(35:09):
1807 to do something to get two thirdsvote of the African members that were
in the church to perform somethingcalled the African supplement, which
gave control of the church property.
And decisions in the churchto the African trustee.
(35:31):
As you can imagine, the Methodistswere less than pleased with that idea.
Right, because they wanted control.
They absolutely wanted total control.
After we did the supplement, they said,okay, you have to get ministers from us.
It's going to cost you 600 a year.
And we said we can't pay 600 andwe're able to get them down to 200.
(35:57):
But then we still had a problem withthem wanting to control everything.
And we really couldn't come to agreementon those things, and it got to the point
where the Methodist leadership wouldtry to force their way into the church
and preach whenever they felt like it.
(36:18):
And we were not happy with this,and we physically stopped them.
The Methodists became so enragedat this, in 1815, they threw
us out of our church building.
And they put it up for public auction.
But because, as I mentioned before,I had money, I was able to go and buy
(36:39):
the church back off of public auction.
Then, they File a case against us atthe Pennsylvania Supreme Court because
they said they tried to argue that theoriginal letters of cooperation still
(36:59):
held and that property could not betransferred to us, even though we had
just bought it at auction and we hadto stay completely under their control.
However, The Supreme Court ruled in ourfavor, and we were finally independent.
And after getting independence, that'swhen we decided we need to unite
(37:23):
the African churches throughout thecountry, and we formed the denomination
where I became the first bishop.
. Here you are just trying to do good.
That's all you're trying to do.
Nobody can argue with that.
And you're just trying tolift people up and do good.
And it's just, every day it's a new fight.
(37:44):
to do
good.
Yes.
Yes.
This is part of the Christian life.
You struggle against the forces ofthis world, which are controlled by
the devil who hates God's people.
(38:05):
And you fight, and you struggle,and you hold on to your faith.
And you go as far as you can go andyou do whatever it is that you can do.
You take the insults, you take allthe oppression, you take all of that,
knowing that if you maintain yourselfin a right relationship to God,
(38:32):
ultimately, You will be victorious.
Good advice.
, where do you stand onthe United States now?
Are you a patriot or not somuch or where do you fall?
Well, I have to be honest with you.
put yourself in my position for a second.
Here you are in the United States,1790, there's a new government in place.
(38:57):
They start passing laws.
One of the laws they passed issomething called the Naturalization Act.
The Naturalization Act basicallysays you have to be in the country.
You had to have been in the countryfor so many years and the skin
color had to be white or you couldnot be a citizen of this country.
(39:18):
by federal law.
And in 1792, they passed the MilitiaAct, which said Unless the color of
your skin is white, you may not servein the armed forces of this country.
And as time is going on, RememberI talked to you about the
American Colonization Society?
, I actually held meetings at my house.
(39:41):
Because for a time I said, Hey, maybethis is what Africans need to do.
Free, and that didn't work out.
However you've heard about therevolution that happened in Haiti.
Clear that up.
Haiti successfully revoltedagainst the French and got
independence from the French.
(40:04):
So I would say around the1820s, the Haitians government.
Reached out to African Americans inthis country and said, we will pay
for you to transport to come to Haiti.
We'll give you land when you get here andlet's build together an African nation.
(40:28):
And I can tell you, I supported this idea.
In fact, I gathered the name of 500Africans who wanted to go to Haiti
because We began to feel this is theonly way we're going to have freedom.
In fact, several membersfrom my church to Haiti.
(40:51):
So we began to look outsideof this country as a way to
have freedom for our people.
And I can tell you and this year.
I have organized an organization,it's called the Society
of Free Persons of Color.
(41:15):
And I pulled together Africanleaders from all over this country.
You see, because we were facingincreasing violence and oppression.
We knew what had happened in Ohio.
In the previous years, free Africansin Ohio were required to post a
(41:41):
500 bond for their good behavior.
In addition to that, What?
Hold on.
They have to post it for their good?
I don't understand.
Clarify.
Meaning, in order for you to remain inOhio, As an African, you had to go and
(42:01):
pay 500 for a bomb as a surety thatyou were going to be a good person and
you weren't going to cause trouble.
That's ridiculous.
And in addition to that, we had heard in1829, there was a communities of free
(42:22):
Africans that were experienced riotsfrom whites who wanted to destroy their
houses and destroy their businesses.
Several of them had to fleeto Canada for their lives.
So when I organized this organizationof free Africans in 1830 at my
(42:49):
church, we had three objectives.
One was to improve ourlot in this country.
Which included, see, can we purchase someland and have more ownership of land?
But the other thing that we wanted todo was establish a settlement in Upper
(43:10):
Canada, Ontario, where those Africanswho are in this country who were tired
of the oppression and they were tired ofthe relations, they could go to Canada.
Because Canada, at that time,Was accepting enslaved and free
(43:33):
Africans into their countrywhere they could become citizens.
So we started to look atother options beyond country.
Because you weren't getting the supportthat was reasonable based on the good that
you were trying to do.
Exactly.
(43:54):
We're not seeing any movement towardsequality, even having the right to
vote, because in fact, in Pennsylvania,right around this time, there's already
being debate to officially deny Africanscitizenship In Pennsylvania before
(44:17):
it was kind of well, maybe it's not.
We're not exactly sure.
But now this talk they wantedto officially exclude us from
citizenship in Pennsylvania.
We were already excludedfrom citizenship federally.
And they wanted to add to that.
(44:39):
And in fact, the Pennsylvanialegislature began to support the
idea that free Africans should go.
I don't think that anybody withan open mind would look at this
situation and think that it wasunreasonable that you were looking
for a different home, consideringthe way that you were being treated.
, it makes complete sense.
(45:01):
And it makes me want to ask this question.
What role do women play in your church?
I want to tell you my role of my women.
I was married twice.
My first wife, her name was Flora.
She was a godly woman.
Godly woman who really supported andgave me encouragement during the worst
(45:24):
times, when the times where I needed that.
Very unfortunately, she is a sicklywoman, and we never had children.
We were married for 10 years.
, and I wanted to mention , remember Isaid I had rental properties, I could
trust her to go out and collect therents and to manage those properties.
(45:48):
So I didn't have to beconcerned with that.
I had so many other things.
Now I remarried in 1801and a woman named Sarah.
And she, again, was a godly woman, andI was able to have six children, she,
also, I could trust to send out and manageour rental properties and to collect the
(46:13):
rents and to manage those properties.
You worked side
by side.
We worked side by side and I can tellyou, as a preacher, sometimes we'd
go out on campaigns and the clotheswould just start to fall apart.
And the one day I came in and she said,you are not leaving this house again.
(46:35):
Looking like that and she gatheredtogether all of the women and they
made sure that we ministers had properdress . So I look at women in my
experience with women to be extremelysupportive in what we were doing.
(46:59):
And I don't know how I couldhave made it without the
support of the women in my life.
Were
you involved with the Freemasons as well?
Yes three years after we startedthe African Church, we started an
African Lodge, Freemason Lodge.
, we looked at places like Christchurch.
(47:21):
Christchurch has George Washington, Dr.
Benjamin Franklin, Bishop William White.
They are all Freemasons.
So we saw what Christchurchwas, sort of as a model.
Because these were churches.
That had Freemasons in them, veryprominent Freemasons, but for we Africans,
(47:49):
we were not allowed to be Freemasonsbecause Freemasonry is by invitation only.
So when we had our church, we said, Oh,yes, we have ministers and all this, but
boy, why should we be denied Freemasonry?
They tried to deny us to have a church,an independent church, and now they're
(48:15):
trying to deny us of having Freemasonry.
And I didn't know anything aboutFreemasonry until I came to
Philadelphia and I met with otherAfricans here who had been in England.
And when they were in England,the Freemasons there allowed them
(48:36):
to participate in Freemasonry.
And so when we looked and saw howprominent and, the pre masons were, and
it's also a church, we wanted that too.
And we were able to finally get it threeyears later because there was an African
man in Boston by the name of Prince Hall.
(48:58):
And he New, when the British occupied, he met the British there and he became
friends with them , and they wereFreemasons and they granted Prince
Hall the authority to start AfricanFreemasonry in the United States.
(49:19):
And we went there.
And we got permission tohave a Freemason Lodge.
I was treasurer of that organization.
But I can tell you that if you look, Ijust recently wrote an autobiography.
And in that autobiography,I make it very plain.
(49:40):
The way I want to beremembered is as a preacher.
of the gospel.
That's how I want it to be remembered.
And if you look at my autobiography,you'll see there's nothing in
there about Freemasonry becauseAbsalom Jones took Freemasonry
a lot more seriously than I did.
(50:03):
Because eventually I stopped being thetreasurer of the Freemasons, but Absalom
Jones, he became what is called theGrand Master of the Prince Hall or the
African Freemasonry in Philadelphia,and later he actually became the head
(50:25):
of the Freemasons in Pennsylvania.
Incredible.
He went that far
with it, huh?
Oh, he went extremely far with it.
And I can tell you, when he died,Masons have a funeral procession
that they do, or a funeral ceremony.
And I started that ceremony at mychurch, where I delivered a message.
(50:51):
And then we marched to the church thathe led, and I delivered another message.
But again, the primary thingin my life was not Freemasonry.
It was spreading the Gospel.
When you just said that's how you wouldwant to be known as a preacher of the
gospel, that is one question that Iknew that I was never going to ask
(51:13):
you, how you wanted to be rememberedor what you were looking for, because
it's very clear What your goal is.
And I want to tell you, I'm justso thankful for everything that
you have done because it's madea difference in the world that we
live right now for so many people.
And it is the right way tolive the way that you live.
And I'm so thankful for you and Iguess I, as we wrap this up is there
(51:36):
anything else that you'd like to leavemaybe a message for future generations?
Any thoughts you'd
like to say?
Yes.
I think it's so important, when Ifirst started preaching the gospel,
I preached to whites and blacks.
It doesn't matter what the colorof your skin is because I believe
we are all humans and we all shouldlove and care for one another.
(52:04):
And I believe that if this countrycan get to the point where We see one
another as made in the image of God.
And if we all walk by faith in JesusChrist, this country can be united and
(52:27):
this country will stand the test of time.
But my concern is that if we remaindivided, Christ warned us a house
divided against itself will not stand.
Bishop Allen,
I thank you so much for your timetoday and all of your wisdom.
(52:49):
And I wish you the absolutebest in the future.
God bless you.
And I thank you for this opportunity.
And it was really a pleasureto spend time with you.
Richard Allen was one of the good guys.
He made money, lots of it, but he didn'tget power hungry or forget about those
who were not doing as well as he was.
He was always trying to liftthose people up around him.
(53:11):
He was practical withoutbeing rude or unfair.
When the United States didn't wantto make him a citizen or give him
rights, he worked around the rulesafter all, nothing said you had
to be a citizen to own property.
Once he felt that those changeswould never happen though.
He gathered his people and said, Hey,if they don't want us, we can leave.
And when he was called upon to riskhis life by founding father, Dr.
(53:34):
Benjamin Rush.
Who asked him to tend to those dyingor dead from the yellow fever epidemic?
He didn't give it a second thought hedid what had to be done to help his
fellow man from the moment he first sawhis purpose to the last day of his life.
Along the way he inspired people to workhard, be charitable, be resilient, and
(53:55):
always have unwavering, unbreakable faith.
Thanks for listening.
And if you enjoy this episodesubscribing, now we'll give you the
ability to communicate with yourpets and even your house plants.
I'm Tony Dean.
And until next time I'm history.
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