Graves Chapel A.M.E. Church will celebrate Founder's Day at 11:30 a.m. today. In 1787, Richard Allen, born a slave in Delaware, founded the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia after he and other blacks were denied the freedom to worship in St. George's Methodist Episcopal Church. Under Allen's leadership, the congregation bought an old blacksmith shop and moved it to a central location in Philadelphia where they organized Bethel A.M.E. Church, which still stands today.