February 14 …

Minister, educator, writer, and one of most active and influential Black leaders in U.S. history, Richard Allen founded the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME), the first independent Black denomination in the United States, opening his first AME church in 1794 in Philadelphia.

Born into slavery on February 14, 1760, Allen purchased his own freedom in his twenties and settled in Philadelphia. He converted to Methodism and began preaching during the Revolutionary War.

Allen first started holding prayer gatherings for Blacks in 1786. Rejecting the discriminatory practices of the Methodist Church, he partnered with another Black preacher, Absalom Jones, to found the Free African Society, the first African American civil-rights organization in the United States.

He eventually — along with Jones — abandoned Methodism for the Episcopal Church, ultimately founding the African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Church. Elected the first bishop of the AME Church in 1816, Allen focused on organizing a denomination in which free Black people could worship without racial oppression and enslaved people could find a measure of dignity.

Richard Allen promoted a vision of Christianity that aided the oppressed and refuted religious doctrines justifying slavery. He was an organizer of the “American Society of Free Persons of Color” (1830), serving as its first president, and worked to upgrade the social status of the Black community, organizing Sabbath schools to teach literacy and promoting national organizations to develop political strategies.