Peter Spencer (religious leader)

Peter Spencer (1782–1843) was born as an enslaved person in Kent County, Maryland, in 1782, was freed when his master died, and became the founder of the first independent black Christian Church in the United States, the A.U.M.P. Church in Wilmington,Delaware, which was a great success. The A.U.M.P. Church is still in existence.

Wilmington Quaker, abolitionist and Underground Railroad “conductor” Thomas Garrett helped him buy land for the Mother Church on French Street in Wilmington, Delaware.

Over the course of his lifetime, Spencer began 31 churches, nearly all of them with schools, and was known as the “father of the independent black church movement.”