The News Journal from Wilmington, Delaware • Page F1

rue crime shows are suddenly dominating every conversation. Is he guilty? Is he innocent? Everyone has a theory. First hijacked pop culture in a way that no podcast ever had; then HBO released the miniseries with its explosive confessional ending; and now, we have the 10-part docuseries a on Netflix, which everyone seems to have spent their Christmases binge watching. These shows, especially the (potentially) wrongful conviction narratives of and a have had a peculiar power over people, and not just as entertainment. Consumers want to be part of the story.

ust look at the many thousands who signed petitions to free Steven Avery, the imprisoned ubject of a and Adnan Syed. Then there are the active Reddit ommunities, positing theories, digging up dirt and tracking down court documents. ut one big difference between these two cultural addictions. One element that made so revolutionary an openness about reportorial bias in a I easy to feel duped as details emerge about what facts the series captured and what the ilmmakers chose to leave out or downplay. WASHINGTON POST ILLUSTRATION; PHOTO FROM NETFLIX Steven Avery, who is serving a sentence for murder in Wisconsin, is the subject of a How listening to made us doubt a facts are STEPHANIE MERRY THE WASHINGTON POST THE NEWS JOURNALDELAWAREONLINE.COM 1F SATURDAYLIFE DEL AWA RE HEALTH Richard Allen, a Delaware slave who founded the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia after buying his freedom, will be the latest African American featured on the U.S.

Postal Service Black Heritage series. The stamp, the 39th in the series, will be released Feb. 2 at a noon ceremony at the Mother Bethel AME Churchon S. Sixth Street in Philadelphia. The stamp is being issued as the church marks the 200th anniversary of its founding and Allen's election as its first bishop.

The church also operates a museumon its grounds. The stamp is a portrait of Allen from an 1876 print titled "Bishops of the A.M.E. Church." The original includes Allen surrounded by 10 other bishops and six historical vignettes and is in the collection of the Library Company of Philadelphia. Allen's legacy lives on in Delaware, too. The former Richard Allen school, which once operated as a blacks-only school, was focal point of the African-American community in according to a historical marker placed there this year.

The school was one of dozens built through the largess of Pierre S. du Pont, whose passion was education. Earlier this year, the property was turned over to the Richard Allen Coalition, a group of Kent and Sussex county residents who hope to raise money preserve and restore the facility. It was last used by the Indian River School District as a school in 2010. Allen's history is muddled.

Some accounts suggest he was born into slavery on a Kent County arm in 1760. Other accounts, including the record at the Richard Allen Museum at Mother Bethel, suggest he was born in Philadelphia. He had very much a Delaware identity," said Russ McCabe, a former state archivist and historian. cCabe said Allen's Delaware connection is strong and like John Dickinson, owner of the Dickinson Plantation near Dover, he was really a "Phila- elawarean," a description coined by the historian John Monroe. What is known for certain is that Allen was born i nto slavery, the property of Benjamin Chew.

Records of the Pennsylvania Historical Society show that Chew's father, Dr, Samuel Chew, purchased Whitehall Plantation on land that is now part of the Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge. The plantation operated with between 40 and 60 slaves and focused on wheat production near Smyrna. Samuel Chew died in 1744 without a will. His property was divided and his son Benjamin worked reassemble the holdings. By 1798, he had re- tored 984 of the original 1,000 acres.

In the meantime, he inherited 54 slaves when his mother died in 1747. Some historians believe it is unlikely that those slaves, who likely included Allen's parents, were based at Cliveden, his Germantown, Pennsylvania, property. Instead, they suggest it is more likely that most were dispatched to Delaware to help work the farm. The Chew family kept detailed records and historians are just beginning to sift through the information. hat is known for certain is that Chew sold All en and his family to a Kent County neighbor, Stokel Sturgis, in 1768.

It was on the Sturgis plantation hat Allen learned to read and write. Sturgis, him- elf not a believer, allowed his slaves to attend reli- ious services. To pay off debts, Sturgis sold All en's parents but Allen and his brother remained on Del. preacher on U.S. stamp MOLLY MURRAY THE NEWS JOURNAL US POSTAL SERVICE Delaware native Richard Allen, founder of the African ethodist Episcopal (AME) Church..