The Free African Society, the first major secular institution with a mission to aid African Americans, paved the way for later institutions such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The society existed for less than a decade, however, before its membership merged with African American churches and other religious organizations with similar agendas.
Both the origins of the Free African Society
Generally speaking, prior to the 1790’s, people of African slave origins who managed to obtain their individual freedom had only one option if they wished to practice Christianity: association, as subordinate parishioners, in an existing white-run church. Several churches in the American colonies before independence, including the Quakers and Methodists, had tried to identify their religious cause with that of the black victims of slavery.
Richard Allen, born in 1760 as a slave whose family belonged to Pennsylvania’s then attorney general, Benjamin Chew, was destined to become one of the earliest religious leaders of the black segment of the American
For six years, Allen worked under the influence of Methodist evangelist Benjamin Abbott and the Reverend (later Bishop)
Portraits of African Methodist Episcopal Church bishops, including Richard Allen, who cofounded the Free African Society in Philadelphia. Surrounding the portraits are scenes depicting Methodist education (Wilberforce University), the AME Church book depository, and mission work in Haiti.
At that time, Philadelphia’s religious environment seemed to be dominated by the
Absalom Jones was older than Allen and had had a different set of life experiences. Born a slave in Delaware in 1746, Jones served for more than twenty years in his master’s store in Philadelphia. He earned enough money to purchase his wife’s freedom, to build his own home, and finally, in 1784, to purchase his own freedom. He continued to work for his former master for wages and bought and managed two houses for additional income. His success earned him great respect among other free blacks and opened the way for him to serve as lay leader representing the African American membership of St. George’s Methodist Episcopal Church.
Traditional accounts of Jones’s role in the founding of the Free African Society assert that, when Jones refused to comply with the announcement of St. George’s sexton that African American parishioners should give up their usual seats among the white congregation and move to the upper gallery, he was supported by Richard Allen, in particular. The two then agreed that the only way African Americans could worship in an environment that responded to their social, as well as religious, needs would be to found an all-black congregation. Some sources suggest that Jones’s reaction to the reseating order was the crowning blow, and that Allen previously had tried to organize several fellow black parishioners, including
Whatever the specific stimulus for Allen’s and Jones’s actions in 1787, they announced publicly that their newly declared movement would not only serve the black community’s religious needs as a nondenominational congregation but also function as a benevolent mutual aid organization. The latter goal involved plans to collect funds (through membership fees) to assist the sick, orphans, and widows in the African American community. Other secular social assistance aims included enforcement of a code of temperance, propriety, and fidelity in marriage. It is significant that a number of the early members of the Free African Society came to it from the rolls of other Protestant churches, not only St. George’s Methodist Episcopal congregation.
The dual nature of the organization’s goals soon led to divisions in the politics of leadership. Apparently, it was Allen who wanted to use the breakaway from St. George’s as a first step in founding a specifically black Methodist Church. Others wished to emphasize the Free African Society’s nondenominational character and pursue mainly social and moral aid services. Within two years, therefore, Allen resigned his membership, going on to found, in July, 1794, the
By 1804, Allen was involved in founding a group whose name reflected its basic social reform goals: the
The Free African Society passed through several short but key stages both before and after Richard Allen’s decision to remove himself from active membership. One focal point was the group’s early association with the prominent medical doctor and philanthropist Benjamin Rush. Rush helped the Free African Society to draft a document involving articles of faith that were meant to be general enough to include the essential religious principles of any Christian church. When the organization adopted these tenets, in 1791, its status as a religious congregation generally was recognized by members and outsiders alike.
More and more, its close relationship with the
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Conyers, James L., Jr., ed. Black Lives: Essays in African American Biography. Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1999. A collection of fifteen biographies of African Americans, including Richard Allen. -
George, Carol V. R. Segregated Sabbaths: Richard Allen and the Emergence of Independent Black Churches, 1760-1840. New York: Oxford University Press, 1973. A scholarly account that includes discussion of the African American churches’ eventual abolitionist activities. -
Mukenge, Ida Rousseau. The Black Church in Urban America. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1983. A comprehensive historical account, emphasizing changes that came by the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. -
Mwadilitu, Mwalimi I. [Alexander E. Curtis]. Richard Allen: The First Exemplar of African American Education. New York: ECA Associates, 1985. This short volume focuses on the career of Richard Allen, including his functions after 1816 as the first bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. -
Nash, Gary B. Forging Freedom: The Formation of Philadelphia’s Black Community, 1720-1840. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1988. An examination of Philadelphia, which by the late eighteenth century had become an urban black center. Describes relations between whites and blacks, the Quaker antislavery movement, and the creation of black institutions. Contains a great deal of information on Richard Allen, Absalom Jones, the Free African Society, and the African Methodist Episcopal Church. -
_______. Race and Revolution. Madison, Wis.: Madison House, 1990. Three essays focusing on the Northern states’ failure to abolish slavery after the Revolutionary War. Describes how free blacks responded to this failure, including the creation of separate African American churches. Contains supporting documents, including a text by Absalom Jones. -
Phillips, C. H. The History of the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church in America. 1898. Reprint. New York: Arno Press, 1972. Written by the editor of the church’s official newspaper. -
Raboteau, Albert J. “Richard Allen and the African Church Movement.” In Black Leaders of the Nineteenth Century, edited by Leon Litwack and August Meier. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988. A scholarly account of the Free African Society’s origins, suggesting that Allen and Jones had discussed the special need for a separate African American church well before the “gallery event” so frequently cited.
New York City Slave Revolt
Stono Rebellion
African American Baptist Church Is Founded
Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery Is Founded
Northeast States Abolish Slavery
Hall’s Masonic Lodge Is Chartered
First Fugitive Slave Law
Benjamin Banneker; Benjamin Rush.