2 seminal black churches thrive in Richmond still

In Richmond, rich with the history of its many black churches, two stand out as seminal institutions. They have survived the ravages of war, pandemic, the Great Depression and racial prejudice to serve their communities today, still drawing from the deep well of their histories.

First Baptist Church of South Richmond was formed in 1821. On the other side of the James River, First African Baptist Church came into being as its own church in 1841.

The Rev. Derik Elton Jones heads First Baptist Church of South Richmond, which still worships in a sanctuary built in 1892 on Decatur Street and uses the complex developed around it.

"We're proud of our history," Jones said, "but we're not defined by our history. We like to say that at this church, we not only sit on a corner, we change the corner."

The Rev. Rodney D. Waller is pastor of First African Baptist Church, whose history "speaks to all generations. We have not remained stuck in our past. Instead, we use it as a springboard to celebrate the now and look forward to the future."

* * * * *

Historians recount the founding of First Baptist Church of South Richmond by free blacks. It originally was called First African Church of Manchester, taking its name from the settlement not yet a part of Richmond.

Early on, the church's founders contemplated joining the movement to colonize Liberia. But many of the free blacks were landholders whose families had been in America since before the Revolutionary War, and they chose to remain. Many of them were tradesmen who built Manchester as it grew.

After Nat Turner's slave revolt in 1831, Virginia law required black congregations to have white pastors, a practice that lasted until the end of the Civil War in 1865.

Jones — who succeeded his father, Richmond Mayor Dwight C. Jones, as pastor of First Baptist Church of South Richmond — noted that in the 20th century, the church was a gathering place for leaders of the civil-rights movement and for rallies for social justice.

Today, Jones said, the church has a membership of about 3,000, and it is not unusual for a Sunday attendance to be 1,500 or more. A few miles away from the historic Decatur Street sanctuary, at Ironbridge Road and Irongate Drive in Chesterfield County, the church has a second campus where it holds one of its three regular weekly worship services.

"We are unashamedly African-American," Jones said of his church, "but we like to share that with others. We try to be as welcoming as possible, and we have white members, Latin American members — you'll see a rainbow in our sanctuary.

"Just as we did in the '50s and '60s, we still minister to the needs of the community," he said. "There is still much to be done. … Our community bears much of the weight of unemployment. We need to strengthen our public schools."

Jones cataloged some of the church's community involvement, including programs to assist with affordable housing and affordable day care, business-incubator space, a feeding program and a free-clothing operation that is "like a department store — not just cast-off clothes. We give of the best of what we have, clothes that can be worn to job interviews."

* * * * *

Across the river, First African Baptist Church is on Hanes Avenue in Barton Heights on the city's North Side, where it has been since 1953. Before that, First African was on Broad Street downtown.

It became its own church, with a congregation of free blacks and slaves, in 1841. The white members of the mixed congregation of First Baptist Church (not the one in Manchester) left and formed a new church.

Operating under the same laws that affected the black church in Manchester, First African had Robert Ryland, a white slave owner, as its first leader.

Ryland was a complex figure. On the one hand, accounts say he preached that servants should submit to their masters "with fear and trembling," quoting St. Paul. On the other, he wrote "The Scripture Catechism for Coloured People," which taught blacks to read — a clear violation of state law.

Skirting another law, he encouraged blacks to preach, albeit from the pews rather than the pulpit.

First African's Broad Street sanctuary, one of the city's largest meeting places, was rented by the white community for concerts, minstrel shows and political rallies. It was demolished in 1876 and a new church built on the site. In the 1950s, when First African moved to North Side, the church building at the Broad Street address was purchased by the Medical College of Virginia and converted to office space.

Waller is in his fourth year as pastor at First African, which has a membership of about 700. He already is steeped in the church's robust history.

He told of First African's first black minister, the Rev. James H. Holmes, who in 1889 played a major role in a broad effort by the black community to save the life of Simon Peter Walker, a 15-year-old black boy sentenced to hang after he was convicted of murder in a hurry-up trial.

A New York Times article from Oct. 10, 1889, recounts that a delegation "headed by the Rev. J.H. Holmes of the First African Church of this city and composed of nearly all the colored preachers in this city and Manchester, called on the Governor (Fitzhugh Lee) in the boy's behalf."

Holmes' delegation helped persuade Lee to issue a temporary stay of execution — one of three reprieves. Eventually, Lee commuted Walker's sentence to 20 years in prison.

* * * * *

Many of First African's members — who numbered in the thousands during stretches of its history — form their own black history who's who of heroes, missionaries, politicians, civil-rights leaders, etc.

For example, one of First African's first deacons was blacksmith Gilbert Hunt, who in 1811 had risked his life to help save many from a theater fire a block from the church.

Henry "Box" Brown was a member. After his wife and children were sold away from him, Brown famously escaped to freedom in 1849 by having himself shipped in a box to Philadelphia. He spent the rest of his life espousing the cause of abolition.

Maggie Lena Walker — a pioneer who in the early 1900s chartered a bank and served as its president, established a newspaper and eventually ran for state office on the "Lily Black" ticket — was a member.

First African boasts L. Douglas Wilder among its members. Wilder was sworn in as Virginia's governor in January 1990, the nation's first African-American elected governor.

Like First Baptist Church of South Richmond, First African was at times a crucial meeting place for the civil-rights movement. An iconic photograph taken at the church shows the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. meeting at the church with Southern Christian Leadership Conference officers Joseph E. Lowery and Wyatt Tee Walker before an SCLC convention.

And, like its south-of-the-river neighbor, First African draws on its deep roots to shape its current ministry.

"We constantly look for ways to serve the community — in our own neighborhood and in the world," Waller said.

The church regularly provides food and clothing for those in need, he said, and tends to the health of the community with things like a free clinic offering tests for HIV. This year the church will convene a financial summit to assist those who attend with achieving financial stability.

Harkening to its long tradition as a source of missionaries and mission work, First African built a well in a village in Ghana, providing clean drinking water for thousands, and it has helped maintain the well since.

Waller said history always will be an important element of what shapes First African.

"There is still excitement," he said, "about the figures in our history who are part of our worship as they sit in the balcony of time."