[4] Closely aligned with Philadelphia's Mother Bethel AME Church, "Men preached from the pulpits but the ladies were responsible for organizing benevolent societies and mission circles, teaching classes in the large Sunday Schools attached to both congregations, as well as singing in the choir and providing a musical accompaniment for the Sunday services," according to historian Barbara Goda.

[1] Among the earliest abolitionists in Berks County were the owners of Fleetwood's Kirbyville Inn, Robeson Township's Joanna Furnace, Reading Furnace and Scarlett's Mill, as well as members of religious institutions throughout the region, who provided safe havens for the men, women and children who were escaping from slavery before and during the American Civil War.

Encountering a man they called "James Turner," they "locked him up as a fugitive," a shocking act to many across Pennsylvania because this was "the first arrest of this kind in the memory of local residents."

In response, a trial was held during which one of the church's founders, Jacob Ross, informed the judicial officer overseeing the case, Judge Banks, that the slave catchers had, in reality, imprisoned a free man — Harry Jones, a member of the Bethel A.M.E. congregation who had been living in Reading, Pennsylvania for roughly six years, and who had just recently married his wife during ceremonies at Bethel.

[7] Reading, was also home to a local Van Leer noted in the anti-slavery movement, owning a nearby cabin on a railroad station and setting up housing for newly freed slaves.