Editing Absalom Jones (section)

== Founding St. Thomas ==

Jones established St. Thomas African Episcopal Church in 1794, the first Black Episcopal congregation in America. His pursuit of Episcopal orders—he was ordained deacon in 1795 and priest in 1802—made him the first African American priest in that denomination. The church he founded provided spiritual home for Black Philadelphians who preferred Episcopal worship while establishing institutional independence that Methodist affiliation might have compromised.<ref name="douglass"/>

His leadership during the 1793 yellow fever epidemic, alongside Allen, demonstrated service that racism would soon ignore or slander. When white Philadelphians fled the city and medical authorities could not contain the disease, Jones and Allen organized Black citizens to nurse the sick, remove the dead, and maintain services that would otherwise have collapsed. Their published response to subsequent accusations—that Black nurses had profiteered or been negligent—defended their community's honor against lies that served racist purposes.<ref name="nash"/>

His pastoral work at St. Thomas continued until his death, his leadership establishing the congregation as center of Black Philadelphia's religious and civic life. His sermons, some published during his lifetime, addressed both spiritual and social concerns, his opposition to slavery consistent with his own experience of bondage. The petition he led to Congress in 1800, opposing the slave trade and seeking gradual emancipation, demonstrated willingness to engage political authority despite the limitations that racism imposed.<ref name="douglass"/>