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Richard Allen and the Sacred Music of Black Americans, 1740–1850

This chapter’s central claim is that the notion of freedom, in the context of theology, music, and modernity (1740–1850), is incomplete if it does not address the sacred music of the enslaved people of North America during this period—a population for whom theology, music, and freedom were of enormous personal and social consequence. The central figure in this regard is Richard Allen (1760–1831), who in 1816 founded the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, the first independent black religious denomination in the United States. Allen was born enslaved, in Philadelphia or Delaware, but was able to purchase his freedom in 1783. He had already had a conversion experience in 1777, and once he gained his freedom, he became an itinerant preacher, ultimately settling in Philadelphia, where he preached at St George’s Methodist Church and a variety of venues in the city. In 1794 he led a walkout of black members at St George’s, in protest of racism; and over the course of a number of years he founded Mother Bethel, which would become the original church of the AME. This chapter situates Allen in the development of black sacred music in the US: first, as the publisher of hymnals for his church (two in 1801, and another in 1818); and second, as an important arbitrator between the traditions and performance styles of Protestant hymnody as inherited in the British colonies, and an evolving oral tradition and performance style of black sacred music.