Absalom Jones, co-founder and first pastor of Philadelphia's African Methodist Episcopal Church, preached a sermon on that day, in which he proposed that the day "be set apart every year ...

Although Absalom Jones had been chosen as its minister, the first sermon was given by a white minister, Samuel Magaw, who spoke paternalistically of the gratitude that black church members should ...

In response to Carey's libel against their community, which by then was already in a fourth edition, Richard Allen and Absalom Jones published A Narrative of the Proceedings of the Black People ...