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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey everyone, I'm Eves and Welcome to the

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Speaker 1: Stand History Class, a podcast that travels back in time

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Speaker 1: one day at a time. Today is April nine. The

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Speaker 1: day was April ninth, eighteen sixteen. The African Methodist Episcopal

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Speaker 1: Church was founded. The A M. E. Church, as it's known,

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Speaker 1: was the first organized denomination in the US to be

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Speaker 1: formed by black people. The A M. E. Church has

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Speaker 1: its roots in the Free African Society, an organization that

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Speaker 1: provided aid to newly freed black people in the US.

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Speaker 1: Black preachers Richard Allen and Absalom Jones, as well as

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Speaker 1: other people in Philadelphia, formed the organization in the seventeen eighties.

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Speaker 1: Facing discrimination at St. George's Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia,

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Speaker 1: a group of black congregants decided to leave the church.

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Speaker 1: Most of them wanted to affiliate with the Protestant Episcopal

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Speaker 1: Church since they did not want to align with the

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Speaker 1: Methodists who had persecuted them. So the Free African Society

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Speaker 1: opened the St. Thomas African Episcopal Church with Jones as

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Speaker 1: the head, but Allan led a small group of people

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Speaker 1: who wanted to remain Methodists in seventeen ninety four, the

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Speaker 1: Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church was dedicated into service. In

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Speaker 1: seventeen ninety nine, Bishop Francis Asbury of the Methodist Episcopal

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Speaker 1: Church ordained Richard Allen as minister of Bethel. Alan and

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Speaker 1: white Methodist leaders developed the Founding Document of Bethel aamy,

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Speaker 1: but as membership in the church grew, so did tensions

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Speaker 1: between the black people and the church and white authorities.

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Speaker 1: The latter attempted to limit Bethel's independence, doing things like

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Speaker 1: threatening to prevent church meetings. They still considered Bethel to

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Speaker 1: be an entity that existed within St. George's and therefore

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Speaker 1: subject to its authority, but Allen continued to advocate for

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Speaker 1: African Methodist independence even as white Methodists escalated the tactics

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Speaker 1: that they used to oppose the church's authority. He turned

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Speaker 1: to an attorney who advised him to add an African

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Speaker 1: supplement to the church's founding document. This supplement said that

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Speaker 1: Bethel's trustees, rather than the Methodist Conference, controlled the church's property.

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Speaker 1: It also said that if the pastor at St. George's

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Speaker 1: did not fulfill his preaching and sacramental obligations, the trustees

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Speaker 1: would call on someone else. On top of Allen's efforts,

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Speaker 1: Bethel members rejected the actions of St. George's ministers, who

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Speaker 1: attempted to assert their authority. By eighteen sixteen, Bethel had

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Speaker 1: around fourteen hundred members. In the beginning of that year,

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Speaker 1: the validity of Allen's African supplement was challenged in the

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Speaker 1: Pennsylvania Supreme Court. Alan emerged victorious in the case, with

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Speaker 1: the court affirming Bethel's independence and Allan's right his self

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Speaker 1: determination as a pastor. James Champion, a minister at Bethel,

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Speaker 1: and Daniel Coker, a Black Methodist in Baltimore, wrote a

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Speaker 1: treatise about the rise of African Methodism with Allan, and

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Speaker 1: Allen encouraged their congregations to form a denomination. On April ninth,

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Speaker 1: eighteen sixteen, Alan and Coker called Black Methodists to meet

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Speaker 1: in Philadelphia. Coker was elected the first bishop of the

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Speaker 1: African Methodist Episcopal Church, but Coker either declined the position

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Speaker 1: or resigned, and soon Allen was consecrated as the first

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Speaker 1: bishop of the church. As more black preachers and parishioners

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Speaker 1: grew tired of dealing with racism and the Methodist Episcopal Church,

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Speaker 1: they withdrew to a line with the African Methodists. By

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Speaker 1: the eighteen fifties, the denomination had reached California, and after

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Speaker 1: the Civil War and reconstruction years, membership and the AAMI

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Speaker 1: Church grew significantly. Today, the church has membership in dozens

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Speaker 1: of countries. I'm e Jeff Cote and hopefully you know

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Speaker 1: a little more about history today than you did yesterday.

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Speaker 1: If there's something or someone you really love to hear

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Speaker 1: about on the show, send your ideas for topics to

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Speaker 1: t d I HC podcast. Thanks again for listening to

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