Nineteenth Street Baptist Church (Washington, D.C.)

The Nineteenth Street Baptist Church, located on 16th Street, NW, is considered to be the first and oldest, independent black Baptist congregation in Washington, D.C. Since its founding in 1839, the church has figured prominently within the historical and social fabric of Washington, D.C.'s African American community.

History

Established as the First Colored Baptist Church of Washington, D.C., on August 29, 1839, the congregation finds its earliest beginnings within The First Baptist Church of the City of Washington, D.C., which was founded on March 7, 1802. Described initially as an interracial congregation, black members worshipped alongside whites. However, similar to other congregations of the time, the church gradually began to segregate its black members from white parishioners. Given their discontent with being assigned to the gallery of what was now the new location of the First Baptist Church, in 1833 a majority of the black members chose to return to the original site located at 19th and I Streets, N.W. The black members of the First Baptist Church continued to worship under the authority of the parent church at the 19th and I Streets location until 1839 when they expressed interest in being organized as a separate body. Reverend Sampson White, who was also instrumental in the establishment of the Concord Baptist Church of Christ, Abyssinian Baptist Church both in New York City, Kaighn Avenue Baptist Church in Camden, New Jersey, and Alfred Street Baptist Church in Alexandria, Virginia, would play an integral role in the founding of the independent congregation.

Sampson White, who had begun to organize a smaller group of black worshipers not from the First Baptist Church, secured recognition from leading white and black Baptists of Baltimore to establish a church. The original members of White's group included his wife, William Bush, Eliza Bush, Lavinia Perry and Emily Coke. With recognition secured, Sampson White's small group received into their body all of the black members of the First Baptist Church currently worshipping at the 19th and I Streets location. With the addition of these members, the membership swelled to a number ten times the size of White's original group.