The Prophetic Witness of Absalom Jones

Today we remember the life and faith of Absalom Jones, the first African American priest in the Episcopal Church, whose memory is to us both a blessing and a testament to the sins of racism and oppression that are still very much alive today in our world and our Church. 

Absalom Jones’ life began in Sussex County, Delaware, where he was born to an enslaved mother in 1746 on the farm of a wealthy Anglican planter named Abraham Wynkoop. During the 72 years of his life, Jones grew to become one of the foremost leaders among persons of African descent during the post-revolutionary period in America, his own story of freedom and persistence running parallel to the birth of our nation.

When Absalom was 16, Abraham’s surviving son, Benjamin Wynkoop, sold the family farm and with it Absalom’s mother, sister, and five brothers. Wynkoop brought Absalom to Philadelphia to be a clerk and handyman in his shop where he was able to work for himself in the evenings and keep his earnings. In Philadelphia, Benjamin became a vestry member at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church while Absalom attended a school run by the Quakers where he learned mathematics and handwriting. 

In 1770, Absalom was engaged to Mary Thomas, who was enslaved by a fellow member of St. Peter’s Church in Society Hill, and the two were married. Under the laws of the time, any child born to an enslaved woman became the property of her master, and so, pooling his savings with donations and loans from abolitionists and Quakers in the city, Absalom purchased Mary’s freedom. It was not until 1784, after years of trying to purchase his own, that Absalom was finally freed by Wynkoop. Absalom took the last name Jones because he felt it reflected his American identity. He continued to work, now for wages, in Wynkoop’s store.

During this period, Jones began worshipping at St. George’s Methodist Episcopal Church. There he met Richard Allen, who became a lifelong friend. Together, in 1787, they founded the Free African Society, a mutual aid benevolent organization that was the first of its kind organized by and for Black people. The society served as a social and political voice to the community, supporting widows and orphans and assisting in sick relief and burial expenses. At St George’s, Jones and Allen served as lay ministers, and their active evangelism greatly increased Black membership at St George’s. As a result of their success, racial tensions flared in the congregation.

The Black members of St. George’s worked hard to raise money to build an upstairs gallery to enlarge the church. Church leaders then decided to segregate the Black worshippers in the gallery without notifying them. During a Sunday morning service, a dispute arose over the seating, and ushers attempted to physically remove Absalom Jones. The Black members present walked out of St. George’s as a body, never to return. In 1792, under the dual leadership of Absalom Jones and Richard Allen, “The African Church” was organized.

Throughout the 1790s yellow fever repeatedly struck Philadelphia. During one such epidemic, many Philadelphians (including most doctors) fled the city hoping to escape infection. Jones and Allen mobilized the members of their church and the wider Black community to care for the afflicted, and their corps of volunteers helped nurse the sick as well as bury the dead. Jones’ and Allen’s responses to the overall crisis strengthened ties between free Blacks and many progressive whites in the city. 

The two men debated whether they should affiliate The African Church with the Episcopal or Methodist denominations. Allen ultimately withdrew with a part of the congregation to found Bethel Church (later, Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church) the first independent black church within the Methodist tradition, where Allen was ordained as the first Black minister in the Methodist Church in 1799. In 1816, Allen gathered other Black congregations in the region to create a new and fully independent denomination, the African Methodist Episcopal Church, of which Allen was the first bishop.

The remainder of the congregation stayed with Jones and applied for membership as a parish of the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania on the following conditions: 

1) that they be received as an organized body

2) that they have control over their own local affairs

3) that Absalom Jones be licensed as their lay reader, and, if qualified, ordained their priest. 

In October 1794, they were admitted as the African Episcopal Church of St Thomas, which remains a healthy, vibrant parish to this day. Bishop William White ordained Jones a deacon in 1795 and priest on September 21, 1802. 

Jones died on Feb 13^th, 1818. His life was a testament to his persistent faith in God and in the Church as God’s instrument. To him, God always acted on “behalf of the oppressed and distressed.” His story gives witness to the power of a marginalized community, led by a determined and prophetic witness, to challenge the accepted prejudices of the day. That holy work is far from done, but that it continues today is the true legacy of Blessed Absalom Jones. 

Author’s Note: This essay is written with thanks to William Carl Bolivar, Director of the Historical Society & Archives at the African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas, for his work preserving the history of this parish and relics of Blessed Absalom Jones.