Life and times of Sarah Allen
Sarah Allen
Sarah Allen (also known as Sara Allen and Mother Allen; née Bass; (1764 – July 16, 1849) was an American abolitionist and missionary for the African Methodist Episcopal Church. She is known within the AME Church as The Founding Mother.
Sarah Bass was born in 1764 in Isle of Wight County, Virginia, as a slave. When she was eight, she was sent to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She was previously married and was the widow. She was hired as a nurse during Philadelphia’s 1793 yellow fever epidemic. They commended her and other black nurses because they endangered themselves while helping victims of the deadly plague. Additionally, she assisted “several families” without compensation, and when offered money she left the decision to “those she served.” . That year she met Richard Allen. They married by 1801. They had six children: Richard Jr., James, John, Peter, Sara, and Ann. Sarah Allen maintained the family finances and general homemaking tasks.
Sarah Allen was highly involved in the AME Church, which Richard Allen founded. The family hid and cared for runaway slaves and their home was a part of the Underground Railroad. The couple used their home and the church to house enslaved people. By 1827, she had founded the Daughters of the Conference. The Daughters supported the male ministers of the AME Church. The women fed and cared for the generally poor and ministers. Allen's biographical entry in Notable Black American Women explained that Richard Allen initially referred to these women as the "'Dorcas Society,'" a title that "generally refers to a women's auxiliary group that is engaged in clothing and feeding the poor." The same entry also pointed out, however, that Allen's efforts in particular were "directed internally toward preparing good meals, repairing garments, and improving the appearance of AME pastors." This care and support went on before and during each annual conference until 1827, when Richard Allen officially identified the group as the Daughters of Conference. Once formally organized, the group expanded, and began helping the needy outside the clergy. Richard Allen christened this far-reaching group the Women's Missionary Society, which was described in Notable Black American Women as one which maintained "a form of children's day-care school during the daytime hours, and helped organize adult classes at night to help educate their church members. They also cooked meals, mended garments, and gathered donated clothes for the needy."
With Sarah Allen’s heavily involvement in the Underground Railway she joined a hosts of black female abolitionists who undermined slavery in both public and private acts of insurgency. Some were motivated by the same Wesleyan social holiness that shaped Allen’s spirituality while others remembered their own freedom from slavery and determined to help free those who were still in bondage.
Sarah Allen died on July 16, 1849, at the house of her younger sister in Philadelphia. She is buried alongside Richard Allen at Mother Bethel A.M.E. Church in Philadelphia.
Sarah Allen's obituary described her death as the loss of "a bright ornament—a jewel, precious—a relic of her formation when she was first seen to glide from the stormy element of oppression … a pillar from the building, a mother in Israel." The AME church's Women's Missionary Society took its founder's name, and the Sarah Allen Women's Missionary Society continues to help on local, state, country, and international levels, as a testament to the influence and inspiration of Sarah Allen's life of service.
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