wait until the prayer is over

Every one of them (the Free African Society) had suffered in one way or another at the hands of whites, some of them in appalling ways. Two of the elders, Absalom Jones and Richard Allen, had once been worshipers at St. George Methodist Church, a congregation composed of both whites and blacks. The blacks had actually helped erect the church building, and Allen was a preacher popular among all members.

Then one day as Jones knelt in prayer at the altar, white trustees grabbed him and ordered him to sit in the back of the church. Jones was a large man and strong enough to shake off his attackers, but he did not respond to his mishandling with force of his own. In a calm voice, he told the trustees, “Wait until the prayer is over, and I will trouble you no more.” Black parishioners then walked out of St. George’s, and Jones and Allen each established a separate church of his own.


An American Plague: The True and Terrifying Story of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793 by Jim Murphy. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2003. p.49, 50