Absalom Jones (1746-1818) was born to enslaved parents in Delaware  and became the first African American ordained Episcopal priest at age 56. Jones taught  himself to read at a young age and was manumitted when he was nearly 40. After  gaining his freedom, Jones and his friend Richard Allen both served as lay ministers at  St. George’s Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia until the church decided to  segregate its African American and white churchgoers, demanding that African  Americans sit further away from the minister in the upper balconies. As a result, Jones  and Allen led a walkout of all the African Americans in the congregation. A year later, in  1792, Jones and Allen co-founded First African Church in Philadelphia and applied for  its acceptance into the Episcopal Church, on the condition that Jones would serve as its  minister and that it would have control over its internal affairs. Jones and Allen’s church was accepted into the Episcopal Church and was renamed the African Episcopal Church  of St. Thomas. Jones delivered this sermon on the first day of 1808 in honor of the end  of the African slave trade in the United States.