What is Freedom? The Story of Richard Allen (1760

When I was younger I use to travel quite a bit, and had the opportunity to visit many other countries and have seen many diverse peoples and cultures, both Western and Eastern, rich, poor and otherwise. It was in one third world country that I visited a home in a very densely populated city that consisted of many very poor people, where I was witness to something that disturbed my sentiments and was rather a culture shock to me. It wasn’t something that scared me, nor something in which I felt I was being insulted, or in danger, or repulsive . . . or any of the typical things one would image would disturb a person.

Rather, it was sort of an astonished and yet awkward and confused kick in the teeth that something was profoundly wrong, or unnatural, in what I realized I was observing right before my eyes. The only word is a sense of disturbing sadness and an inability to even understand how this could be taken as something no one else around me seemed to be shocked by.

In retrospect, if I tell you what I saw, it may sound like something that would not appear to cause me to feel so disturbed. But, actually, I happened to mention it to someone else who have the exact same experience when he happened to be in the same country, and he also was taken with the same sensation at the time, that something was disturbingly unnatural and wrong with what he saw. It isn’t something easily explained, but I think it is something that other Americans would be taken with when actually confronted with the situation. It seemed to disturb something very deep inside of me, and I even recall as if a voice in my mind was saying that what I am seeing is profoundly “un-American”.

Now let me tell you what it was. Again, when I tell you what happened that it may not even strike you as a story of much telling. But I think, if you were there with me at the time, it would not surprise me to find how very much it would actually effect you in same manner, even if you think it would not. I think it has something to do with being an American and something about values that are inside of us, grown over time and history, which we may not even acknowledge but are now somehow hard wired inside of us.

What had happened had all occurred in the matter of the very first few minutes of entering this home. The family that lived in this home are wonderful people. By our standards, they would not be considered rich, though in this city in which they lived they are well off indeed. And while they would be considered well off in their society, they did not live in a “house” as we would think of it with it’s own roof, and a front yard, and a back yard, and such, but rather a family that was rather crowded into an apartment like dwelling about midlevel of a multi-story complex that would be considered urban blight in almost any American city.

I entered this home, and was very welcome. Of course, food is the first thing on the agenda to greet me. And the young ones of the family are introduced. As I was lead to the couch to sit down as a meal was being prepared, that is when I noticed something.

There were two teenage girls looking at me from the kitchen. They had a different look than the children of the family. It wasn’t the look of being part of the family - in fact, I knew at once they were not part of the family.

With a wave of a hand, this was some sort of order to them from the head lady of the family. They were to prepare food.

There was one other girl who was cleaning up the floor with a very simple, hand made, broom. She looked at me like I was from another planet.

“Who are they?” I asked one of the girls of the family, who was of equal age as the ones that now were busy spooning food into containers.

Very soon the food was ready, there wasn’t enough furniture for everyone to sit on, nor a place for a dining table, while I was given a chair (I appears no one is allowed to eat while sitting on the couch) most everyone else sat on the floor.

But not these three girls, the “servants”. Yes, they also sat on the floor to eat, but they sat several feet away from everyone else.

You know, it really did disturb me. I couldn’t put my mind on exactly what the feeling was, but I felt something was very wrong. Un-American.

“Do they stay here with you?” I asked one of the family about the “servants”.

Not at night, I was told, and then in a whisper I was informed how one of them had stolen some jewelry from the house. I was confused. If one had stolen some jewelry, then why would they still be in the house and not arrested? At least, I thought that, but I didn’t say that.

I noticed they didn’t get any of the good food. And I noticed their clothing was even torn.

I realized, these people indeed were servants. The very concept had a deep, profound, shock to my psyche. In fact, they were sort of like slaves and I found out more information about them.

While they did not sleep in the house, nor it appeared were they allowed to “leave the neighborhood”. In fact, if they left they were guilty of a crime – not the crime in particular to the letter of a law that said “you are not allowed to leave”, but rather a suspicion that they did some other crime and guilt without any presumption of innocence and surely pursued by the law if seen and caught again.

I know what I am trying to explain sounds odd, but it was clear that this was the reality of the situation. In fact, there was one other such “servant” who had “left the neighborhood”, and thus by leaving is presumed guilty of the crime of stealing and will be pursued by the local authorities if she does not come back to continue her duties as a servant.

One of the “servants” gave me a side glance. I could see this did not take well with one of the family, and I had a sense that if I would glance back perhaps I would be considered having an interest in this person other than simply curious as to who, why, and where.

What had disturbed me, continued to disturb me for a long time into the evening after I left this home. I was very welcomed, and was given much love and attention. They wanted me to stay. And yet, there was something inside of me that was very sad.

The next time I saw one of those from this family, I couldn’t help but mention, “you know, we don’t have servants in our country” . . . Of course, I was told that they are happy to be servants and have some employment . . . and I suppose that the very, very poor are very happy to be servants. It still didn’t shake me of this feeling. This very disturbing feeling. That it was, and is, un-American. Perhaps to some of you, it may not effect you in the same way. All I know is, in the world I grew up in, even though I was something that was never “taught” to me, instinctively it must have been something about the society I lived in and the culture of my world that would cause such a thing to disturb me so much and in such a manner. Perhaps this isn’t something that all Americans share, but I think it is something many Americans share.

It was called “Richard Allen – Preacher”. There was a portrait of a black man. I read on. It told me about a person called Richard Allen who was born in 1760. Immediately my mind thought of 1776, that this was just prior to the beginnings of what we call America, an independent nation from England. I read he was born near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It said, Allen was a slave.

He was more fortunate than many slaves, it appears he had a master who “did not believe in separating slave families”.

There was something about the idea – the words about separating families. I could not even imagine someone doing that to my family, to my children. Of course, I learned about slavery. Of course, I understood what that meant. But, I am now much older – and the idea of such a thing, it sort of made me think back to that time and that home and those servants.

I read that Richard was lucky in that as a small boy, his family was allowed to be together.

I read this Richard Allen, even as a very small boy, liked to preach. In fact, he would go off on his own and talk to himself or out loud – even for hours. He wanted to practice how to talk, how to “speech” to others.

Apparently, since the Quaker master was an important man, many people came to his home.

In the room where these men spoke to each other, Richard would listen. And listen. Just listening to others talk.

Then one day, the Quaker master’s business went bad. He went into debt. Being that he did not want to separate the Allen family, he SOLD the entire Allen slave family to someone else.

However, the new master could not produce enough to even feed this entire family, so he sold Richard’s mother and the younger children. He kept Richard and one brother. His mother was now gone.

Before she was gone, apparently his mother use to tell him that there is something called freedom. She said, when she was a young slave she had been mistreated. But I appears her idea of freedom isn’t what Americans think of today. To her, freedom was God.

But she urged them to earn money, she understood if this was possible that they might be able to buy freedom.

His mother was gone, but as he grew older, Richard attended prayer meetings, and some slaves could hold religious services on the farm. At that time many other slave owners did not allow this.

Richard’s new master wasn’t even a Christian. But Richard Allen actually became a leader of “The Methodist Society”. Because all his practice talking out loud to himself in the woods as a boy turned him into a very good preacher.

Now that the master was a Christian, he offered to Allen his freedom for $2,000 dollars.

At that time, the Revolutionary War was going on. Richard got a chance to do work as a wagon driver for money. He still had to work had as a slave, but he did drive a wagon, and over a long period of time he saved $2,000 dollars.

His master was true to his word, and gave Richard Allen his freedom in exchange for $2,000 dollars.

Then one day, being he was such a good preacher, Allen was asked by the Methodists to teach blacks in the slums of Philadelphia. He went, and he was so good at organizing blacks to come to church, that he even got the black people to repair on old building into a wonderful church. They even collected money for furnishings for the church. In fact, he was such a good preacher, both black and white people came.

In fact a lot of white people also came. But as the crowd grew large, there was a “disagreement about the seating arrangements”. I am not sure what the disagreement was about, the writing did not clarify. But if I were guessing, I see some very snippy white ladies who wanted to sit in the front and wanted the blacks to sit in the back, perhaps. I do not know.

So to “avoid trouble”, Richard Allen left and organized a new congregation called Bethel Church.

Then in 1793, there was an epidemic. It was called “yellow fever” and it struck Philadelphia.

He organized a committed, of black people, and they worked day and night to care for the sick, and to bury the dead.

After the epidemic was over, Richard Allen became famous. He was seen as a civic leader as well as a preacher, by both black and white people.

In 1816 he organized the African Methodist Episcopal Church. He was elected as their Bishop.

Of course I am aware of slavery in this country, in our past. I always knew, and the images I have seen. But there was something about this story. The story of slavery never really struck me as a cold reality. But there was something about this story, that reminded me of that day back in that other country, when I visited that nice family. That feeling that something was “un-American” in what I saw. I have always known that slavery was part of our American experience. But it was a long time ago. And over that time, somehow some Americans, such as myself, have somehow been “hardwired” to notice something that seems “un-natural”, and disturbs us – or at least disturbs me.

The emotions related here reminded me of Darwin's encounter with slavery in South America:

I may mention one very trifling anecdote, which at the time struck me more forcibly than any story of cruelty. I was crossing a ferry with a negro, who was uncommonly stupid. In endeavouring to make him understand, I talked loud, and made signs, in doing which I passed my hand near his face. He, I suppose, thought I was in a passion, and was going to strike him; for instantly, with a frightened look and half-shut eyes, he dropped his hands. I shall never forget my feelings of surprise, disgust, and shame, at seeing a great powerful man afraid even to ward off a blow, directed, as he thought, at his face. This man had been trained to a degradation lower than the slavery of the most helpless animal. - Chapter II, Voyage of the Beagle

I, too, have been dumbstruck and afraid to speak against evil while in both other countries and this one. Inaction at the time might be personaly prudent, but it leaves a hollowness and guilt. That is why I try to think of the strength of a person such as Lincoln who, in spite of his personal prejudices and real, and fatal as it turned out, fear of attack from the people committed to doing evil, decided that doing the right thing, even at great cost, was better than allowing the evil to continue.

A long time ago I had a coworker who was a married woman from India. She was a very nice lady. But she often spoke wistfully of all the servants she could have if she still lived in Bombay (as it was called then).

I also had a feeling that there was something deeply un-American about this. I think it is because the free availability of servants always goes hand-in-hand with having a class society.

When the middle class can afford servants, there must be a corresponding poor class and also the possibility of these people to live on a much poorer scale. To the extent that groups of people are stuck in this class and restricted from moving out of it by their own efforts and are furthermore regarded as lesser beings, it goes against the American ideal of all men being created equal.

If you really take a look at ANY 3rd world country, they are filled with racism and social innequities. I'm not sure if the poverty creates the inequity, or the inequity creates the poverty. For example, India has incredible anymosity within certain sects, Africa has violent tribalism, etc. It boils down to lack of brotherly love.

What is amazing is that they don't realize the problem. I had a Brazilian friend boast to me how he kisses and hugs his black maid, unlike the cold racist Americans. I told him that blacks, in the US, aren't necessarily maids and are able to work in any profession, and his referrence to a "black maid" isn't even applicable here. He didn't understand my point. One major problem this country has, are the horrible movies produced, they really distort the perception of US culture.

Nice article.

We actually do have servants here in the USA. In fact, a majority of the population can be considered to be servants. Since we have the ability to do as we please for a part of each day and of each week, we do not readily believe so.

Each of us is required under penalty of the Law to serve the government by paying taxes. If you think you have freedom here, stop paying yours. Wesley Snipes has a good attorney who can then serve you by defnding you from your master. Also, if you “own” a home, stop paying your property taxes or your mortgage and see if you are indeed serving someone. Do you really own it or does a bank own it and allow you to live there in exchange for your service to them of a regular payment? The same can be asked of your local or state property taxation authority? Do you really own your home or do you serve your local and state government in the form of property taxation by paying them each year for the privilege of “owning” your home?

Those of us who have jobs are also servants. We sell ourselves to someone who tells us what we can do for a portion of our day. He/she tells us what we must do with our time that we have sold to him. If your job is to clean the toilet, you serve in that capacity. If you are to serve by designing Knuter valves for the space shuttle engine, you do as you are told. What punishment comes if you stop serving? No more paycheck. You are serving because your “Master” gives you something you need or want in return for your service.

Even businesses are servants. However, they serve as many people as possible in the quest to make a profit on their good or service. Do they also serve the government? YES! I think I read here yesterday that even Exxon Mobil served the US government last year to the tune of 27 billion dollars. This was 41% of the profit they had earned in the previous year by serving their customers in the best way they possibly could. If one factors in that Exxon Mobil has a profit margin in the gasoline business of less than 10%, this corporation did much service for its customers for a relatively small reward percentage. Fortunately for them, they are not in the automobile manufacturing business.

Having said that mouthful at this early hour, I have one final question.

How free are you?

I spent several years in Haiti where child slavery is endemic. In the homes of US and Haitian pastors I saw these desperate children time and time again. Some were as young as 7. They were treated as less than human even by their US citizen masters. The practice and experience sickened me. I spent time getting to know several of these children. They were anxious to run away and gain their freedom. Their owners had no idea why I was concerned and were angry with me for talking iwth them.

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