1 Richard Allen
Black Heritage Stamp #39
I am extremely proud to feature this as my first stamp.
It is the 39th stamp of the United States Postal Service’s Black Heritage series of stamps.
This series posthumously honors prominent African Americans in the US. However, you will learn as we move forward that many African Americans are featured here in the US and around the world on stamps that are not included in this series.
This stamp honors the founder and first duly elected Bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church –
Bishop Richard Allen (1760 – 1831).
The African Methodist Episcopal Church is the first independent black denomination in the US.
He was a preacher, writer, civic leader, activist, and educator who was born a slave but bought his freedom from slavery and then embarked on a remarkable life.
Allen began preaching at St. George’s Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Eventually he and another black Methodist preacher Absalom Jones broke from the segregation of St. George’s to create a worship experience for African Americans independent of the white church. These two formed the Free African Society (FAS) in 1787 as a benevolent organization, a non-denominational mutual aid society which held religious services for freed African slaves and assisted new migrants to the city. Eventually Absalom Jones went on to pastor St. Thomas’ African Episcopal Church in Philadelphia.
However, these two were among several persons who purchased a lot on Sixth Street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to build a church. On that land, which is the oldest parcel of real estate that has been owned continuously by African Americans in the United States, now stands Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church In 1794 Mother Bethel AME, located at 419 South Sixth Street in the center of the City of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania was dedicated with Richard Allen as pastor.
Allen successfully sued in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s court system to have his African American congregation exist independently from the white Methodists. In 1816 Allen led a congregation of black Methodists, who were encountering racism and who wanted religious autonomy, to form what has now become the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AMEC). In that same year he was the elected as the first Bishop of this denomination.
The AMEC is a world-wide connectional church with over twenty Episcopal Districts in almost forty countries on five continents and is one of the most influential and important organizations for African Americans in the world.
On February 2, 2016 the US Postal Service honored Richard Allen during Black History Month at Mother Bethel AME in the City of Philadelphia, during the 200th anniversary year of the founding of the AME church, by dedicating a Forever stamp for “his inspirational life and profound contribution to American history.1”
1https://about.usps.com/news/national-releases/2016/pr16_003.htm
