Allen, Richard, 1760-1831, American clergyman, founder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. He was born a slave in Philadelphia. He became pastor of a black group that had seceded from the Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia. When the African Methodist Episcopal Church was organized nationally (1816), Allen was consecrated its first bishop.
See biographies by M. M. Mathews (1963) and C. V. R. George (1973).
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