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Richard Allen descendants expected to attend postage-stamp ceremony

Tuesday’s forever-stamp unveiling precedes African Methodist Episcopal Church bicentennial, 256th anniversary of Allen’s birth.

Richard Allen: Forever stamp.
Richard Allen: Forever stamp.Read more

MANY Philadelphians know that Richard Allen founded Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church after he and fellow pastor Absalom Jones led a walkout from St. George's Methodist Church in Old City in 1787 to protest segregated seating.

But V. Yvonne Studevan is certain that most folks don't know about Allen's other civic and humanitarian deeds. "He just made such an impact on the world," said Studevan, a descendant of Allen's.

Long before the Civil War, Allen wrote pamphlets calling for the abolition of slavery and helped former slaves find refuge.

"He hauled salt to George Washington's troops in Valley Forge," Studevan said. "He organized black people to nurse the sick and bury the dead during the yellow-fever epidemic of 1793 and he led black men to form a militia in the War of 1812."

Studevan expects that more people will learn of Allen's role in history with the unveiling Tuesday of a Richard Allen forever stamp by the U.S. Postal Service.

Studevan will be among a number of Allen's descendants to join AME bishops, dignitaries and school groups from around the country at a noon ceremony at Mother Bethel, on Sixth Street near Lombard in Society Hill.

The stamp's arrival coincides with this year's 200th anniversary of the founding of the AME Church, and with the 256th anniversary of Allen's birth on Feb. 14, 1760.

In 1816, several black Methodist ministers in the region met at Mother Bethel to declare the AME Church independent from the Methodist Church.

That year, Allen and Mother Bethel won a court ruling granting the right to keep ownership of the church. Allen had purchased the land in 1791. The church, rebuilt over the years, was dedicated in 1794.

After Mother Bethel formed, white Methodist leaders claimed ownership of the new church, said Richard S. Newman, director of the Library Company of Philadelphia.

"By 1816, it was clear that the white Methodists were saying, 'We own your property and we are going to dictate to you who can preach [here],"said Lewis, author of Freedom's Prophet: Bishop Richard Allen, the AME Church and the Black Founding Fathers.

Newman said Allen's generation of African-American leaders was almost "lost to history," because historians after the Civil War wrote mostly about Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman, whose protests against slavery were before and during the war.

"But Allen was challenging America to end slavery through his writings and preaching at the time of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton," Newman said.

Allen's image on the stamp was taken from an 1876 print called Bishops of the AME Church, from the Library Company's collection.

'It was a labor of love'

Jacquelyn Dupont-Walker, director of the national AME Social Action Commission, said she began researching how to apply for a stamp in Allen's honor in 2002.

Years later, after gaining support from organizations outside the AME Church, Dupont-Walker helped collect 40,000 signatures to petition for the stamp.

"It was a labor of love," Dupont-Walker said.

The 200th anniversary of the AME General Conference will convene in Philadelphia in July, when a statue of Allen will be unveiled in a courtyard near the church.

Born into slavery in 1760, Allen bought his freedom along with one of his brothers. He became a licensed Methodist preacher and in 1787 helped form the Free African Society, believed to be the first black mutual-aid society created by free blacks.

Allen and other blacks also opened schools for black children. After leaving St. George, Absalom Jones and his followers founded the African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas in 1792.

Allen died in 1831, not long after convening the first "Negro Convention Movement" meeting in 1830 at Mother Bethel.

Studevan, 71, an artist whose work is regularly exhibited, grew up in Yeadon, Delaware County.

She taught in Philadelphia public schools for four years, then moved near Athens, Ga., after marrying Russell H. Studevan. Both are retired school administrators.

Studevan said that she and her brother Harold Burnley, of Yeadon, are among the seventh generation of Allen descendants.

Her aunt Katharine Dockens, 94, a sixth-generation descendant, is expected to attend.

"There will be representatives of the sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth generations," she said.

Richard Lawrence, 44, an eighth-generation descendant and an ophthalmologist who lives near Atlanta, will make remarks on behalf of the family.

Lawrence grew up in Overbrook Farms and graduated from the George Washington Carver High School of Engineering and Science. He later went to the University of Virginia and Morehouse School of Medicine, in Atlanta.

In an email, Lawrence wrote that it is "a great honor" to have a stamp featuring Allen, who he said had no blueprint to follow for all that he achieved.

"You don't hear about former slaves who became entrepreneurs, preachers, church founders and who attended to the sick and poor [during] the yellow-fever epidemic," Lawrence said.

"I will speak about how injustice led to Richard Allen founding Mother Bethel and the AME Church. It led to the church's efforts to advocate for the abolition of slavery and the formation of Black Theology."

russv@phillynews.com

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