The Black Church in America

Richard Allen (1760-1831) was born a slave and converted to Methodism as a young man. After he converted his owner, he was given his freedom. In 1874 he was accepted as a Methodist preacher and returned to Philadelphia to preach . After an incident in which white parishioners forced the African-Americans present to segregate themselves, he led his black parishioners to form a Free African Society in 1787 , and in 1794 Allen established a separate Methodist church for African-Americans. Many African-Americans flocked to the new denomination as it allowed them to worship God in a culture that they could relate to. Allen, who campaigned for many years against the slave trade, worked to make the church an organization that was able to unite the African-Americans together.
In 1816 a number of independent black Methodist churches around the North East came together to form the African Methodist Episcopal Church, and on 11th April 1816 he was ordained its first bishop leading it until his death.