Freedom's Prophet

Freedom's Prophet is a biography of Richard Allen, founder of the first major African American church and leading black activist of America's early nation.

Gold Winner of the Foreword Magazine Book of the Year Award, Biography Category

A tireless minister, abolitionist, and reformer, Richard Allen inaugurated some of the most important institutions in African American history, influencing nearly every black leader of the nineteenth century, from Frederick Douglass to W. E. B. Du Bois.

Born a slave in colonial Philadelphia, Allen secured his freedom during the American Revolution, becoming one of the nation's leading black activists before the Civil War. Among his achievements, Allen helped form the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, co-authored the first copyrighted pamphlet by an African American writer, published the first African American eulogy of George Washington, and convened the first national convention of Black reformers. In a time when most Black men and women were categorized as slave property, Allen was championed as a Black hero.

In Freedom's Prophet, history professor Richard S. Newman describes Allen's continually evolving life and thought, setting both in the context of his times. From Allen's antislavery struggles and belief in interracial harmony to his reflections on Black democracy and Black emigration, Newman traces Allen's impact on American reform and reformers, on racial attitudes of the early republic, and on the Black struggle for justice in the age of Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and Washington. Whether serving as America's first Black bishop, challenging slave-holding statesmen in a nation devoted to liberty, or visiting the President's House (the first Black activist to do so), Allen's achievements place him in the pantheon of Americas great founding figures.

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