The Annual Diocesan Absalom Jones Observance for the Episcopal Diocese of Central Pennsylvania

The Annual Diocesan Absalom Jones Observance for the Episcopal Diocese of Central Pennsylvania will be held on Sunday afternoon, February 12, 2023, at St. Paul's Episcopal Church, 248 Seneca St., Harrisburg, PA 17110. All are invited to attend all or a some of the events.

Absalom Jones was an African American abolitionist and clergyman who became prominent in Philadelphia, PA. Disappointed at the racial discrimination he experienced in a local Methodist church, he founded the Free African Society with Richard Allen in 1787, a mutual aid society for African American in the city. The Free African Society included many people newly freed from slavery after the American Revolutionary War. Absalom Jones later founded the first black Episcopal congregation and became the first African American to be ordained as a priest in the Episcopal Church in the United States.

The observance begins at 2pm with the Dr. George H. Love youth…