By
Claynishia McGhee
Age 15
Bethel A.M.E. Church
Baton Rouge, LA
Richard
Allen in 2001 has changed this world tremendously.
Without Richard Allen
there would be no African American Episcopal Church, and I believe if
there were a church it would not be as productive as it is today.
Even
though Allen was a slave, he was a great leader. Richard Allen preached
in Delaware, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania preaching the word of
God.
Allen showed that wherever you come from that you can be a leader.
Richard Allen and Absalom Jones started an organization Free African
Religious Society in 1787 to help African American slaves.
He also
helped his community and started the African American Episcopal Church
in 1789. After the Revolutionary War, he furthered the Methodist, cause
by becoming a licensed exhorter preaching to blacks and whites from New
York to South Carolina.
His efforts attracted the attention of Methodist
leaders, including Francis Asbury, the first American bishop of the
Methodist Church. In 1786 Allen was appointed as an actions Minster in
Philadelphia. He served at St.. Georges Methodist Church.
The next year he
and Jones, an other black preachers, joined the ex-slaves and Quaker
philanthropists. In 1794 he rejected an offer to become the pastor of
the church the Free African Society built, St. .Thomas's African Episcopal
Church, a position ultimately accepted by Absalom Jones.
A large
majority of the society had chosen to affiliate with the white Episcopal
Church. Allen's decision to found a black congregation was partly a
response to white racism. Although most of the Whit Methodists in the
1790s favored emancipation, they did not treat free blacks as equals.
They refused to allow African Americans to be buried in the
congregations cemetery and in an incident in 1792, which was famous,
segregated them into a newly built gallery of St. George's Methodist
Church.
Richard Allen's action also reflected a desire among
African-Americans to control their religious lives. Bethel's rapid
expansion reflected the growth of Philadelphia's black population, which
almost numbered 10,000 by 1810, and the appeal of Methodist practices.
He has changed the world to let anyone, or any race are color can
worship God together, and that's what "The Importance of Richard
Allen in 2001" means to me.
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