Founder of AME Church remembered in Salt Lake


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SALT LAKE CITY — Trinity AME Church on Tuesday held a press conference on the 252nd birthday of Bishop Richard Allen, a man who never came to Utah but has had a profound impact on our culture.

Salt Lake City Mayor Ralph Becker declared Tuesday Bishop Richard Allen Day. Read his proclamation here.

Richard Allen was born a slave in 1760. Freed 20 years later, he became a teacher, writer, minister and founder of the African Methodist Episcopalian Church.

Tuesday Utahns came together at Salt Lake's AME church to celebrate the 252nd birthday of Bishop Allen, a man who inspired the abolitionists of his time and the civil rights movement of ours.

About Bishop Richard Allen
  • Born Feb. 14, 1760 in Philadelphia
  • Born a slave, sold to a planter in Delaware, then obtained freedom
  • First bishop of African Methodist Episcopal Church, 1816
  • Church founded on principles of the power of divine love
  • Died March 26, 1831 in Philadelphia

Alan Scott Bachman, chairman of the Salt Lake Interfaith Roundtable said, "Bishop Allen was a man of love. He was a man who wanted all people to be free - black people, white people, people of every color - to be free."

The Salt Lake Interfaith Roundtable has launched a campaign to help raise renovation funds for the 105-year- old AME church located at 239 E. 600 South in Salt Lake. It's trying to raise $300,000.

The building is on the national and state registers of historic places.

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Contributing: Richard Trishman

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