Richard Allen was enslaved at birth to a Philadelphia family of a prominent lawyer and official, Benjamin Chew. Allen was sold with his family to Stokely Sturgis, a Delaware farmer in 1768. In 1777, Allen experienced a religious conversion to Methodist. And then later purchased his freedom in 1780. Allen co-founded the Free African Society in 1787, helped many during Philadelphia's yellow fever epidemic in 1793, and founded Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1816. Sunday morning Richard Allen and Absalom Jones attended St. George's Church. One of the administrators asked Jones not to kneel during the prayer, but Jones asked to wait until the prayer was over. But Jones was not given a chance to finish the prayer, and soon another man came to remove him from the church. Having been denied the opportunity to worship, Jones, Allen, and other African American members of the church had left before the prayer was over. Allen and Jones had been expelled from the church. From there the Free African Society was born 1787...