Music of the Black American Composer, Juneteenth: Richard Allen Hymnal of 1801
name: label: Collection Collector
content: Maltsby, Portia
label: Collection Creator
content: Smithsonian Institution. Program in African American Culture
setName: label: See more items in
content: Program in African American Culture Collection
label: See more items in
content: Program in African American Culture Collection / Series 1: Program Files
unitdate: label: Date
content: 1986 June 7
container: label: Container
content: Box 15, Folder 13
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Archives Center, National Museum of American History
objectType: label: Type
content: Archival materials
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: Lecture and song workshop held June 7, 1986 at the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution. It examined the sacred music tradition of the African Methodist Church focusing on the 1801 Richard Allen hymnal. Richard Allen, hymn writer, publisher and pastor, was born a slave in Philadelphia in 1760. By the late 1700s, Allen, a devout Methodist, had resolved to build a Black Methodist Church that would address the needs of black people whose worship tradition grew out of camp meeting spiritual songs. In 1787, he led a group of free blacks out of the St. George Methodist Church to form their own organization, the Free African Protection Society. Their mission was to build a church with the freedom to develop their own religious practice and songs. In 1791, his congregation established the Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, in central Philadelphia.
Allen's hymnal entitled Collection of Spiritual Songs and Hymns from Various Authors by Richard Allen, African Minister, was the first of several he published. They contained worship songs in the black tradition in addition to those learned by blacks in white churches. The program organized by Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon, director, Program in African American Culture (PAAC). Program number AC408.43.