through working
together through black cooperation, could any progress be made. After
being refused recognition by the American masons, his lodge was
legitimized by a branch of the British Masons connected with army
stationed in Boston. Before long African lodges as well as other
fraternal organizations sprang up all across the country. Denied access
to white society, blacks found it necessary to form various kinds of
organizations for their own welfare.

Even within the church which supposedly stressed brotherhood, separate
African organizations were emerging. During the revolution, George Liele
founded a black Baptist church in Savannah, Georgia. Although similar
churches sprang up throughout the South, the independent church movement
progressed more rapidly in the Northern states. In 1786 Richard Allen,
who had previously purchased his freedom from his Delaware master, began
similar meetings among his own people in Philadelphia. He wanted to found
a separate black church, but he was opposed by Blacks and whites alike.
However, when the officials of St. George's Methodist Church proposed
segregating the congregation, events came to a head. Richard Allen,
Absalom Jones, and others went to the gallery as directed, but the ushers
even objected to their sitting in the front seats of the gallery. When
they were pulled from their knees during prayer, Allen and his friends
left the church, never to return. They immediately formed the Free
African Society and began collecting funds to build a church. This
resulted in the founding of St. Thomas' African Protestant Episcopal
Church headed by Absalom Jones. In spite of the behavior of the
Methodists, Allen believed that Methodism was better suited to his
people's style of worship and gradually he collected a community of
followers. In 1794 the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church was
opened in Philadelphia. In 1816 several A.M.E. congregations met
together to form a national organization with Allen as its bishop.
Similar events in New York City led to the establishment of the African
Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. Early in 1807 a black Baptist Church was
founded in Philadelphia, and later in that same year congregations were
established in Boston and New York. The New York congregation developed
into the Abyssinian Baptist Church.

The African church became the most important organization within the
Afro-American community. Besides providing spiritual strength and