The Times of Richard Allen

The Times of Richard Allen was created alongside the Climbing Jacob's Ladder: The Rise of Black Churches in Eastern American Cities, 1740 - 1877 exhibition which explored the growth and central role of African American churches during the 18th- and 19th-centuries in the eastern United States: Boston, Savannah, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, and Richmond. The exhibition was organized by the Anacostia Museum and held there from October 1987 to October 1988.;Born a slave in 1760 on the Delaware property of Benjamin Chew and later sold to Stokely Sturgis, Richard Allen was one of the founders of the Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia in 1789. In 1801, his collection of spiritual songs and hymns helped to establish an ongoing tradition of hymn singing at Mother Bethel. Allen also formed the Free African Society, Philadelphia's first black mutual aid society to serve the needs of African Americans regardless of religious beliefs, with Absalom Jones in 1787 after African Americans were segregated during worship services at St. George's United Methodist Church in Philadelphia.;Michael W. Howell collaborated with Smithsonian staff to create The Times of Richard Allen, a one-man dramatization performed by Howell at the Smithsonian's Museum of American History in 1987 to augment the museum's exhibit "After the Revolution: Everyday Life in America, 1780-1800," which focused in part on Allen. [McIntyre, Mike. Accolade for Round House. The Washington Post, Feb. 17, 1987.]