First Baptist Church

QA-40

First Baptist Church, one of the nation's oldest African American congregations, traces its origins to 1756, when worshipers known as New Lights began meeting outside Petersburg. The congregation moved to the city about 1820 and opened a sanctuary here in 1863. After the building burned in 1866 during a wave of arson targeting Petersburg’s black churches, the present sanctuary was built in the Romanesque style and dedicated in 1872. Peabody High School originated in the church in 1870. During the Civil Rights Movement, First Baptist was a center for community organization. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke here in 1962 at a regional meeting of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

Department of Historic Resources, 2019

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References/Bibliographic Citation:

First Baptist Church, “Church History” First Baptist Church, “197th Anniversary and Mortgage Burning” First Baptist Church, “Celebrating 200 Years of Christian Witnessing” The Virginia Baptist Register, no. 50. Robert B. Semple, A History of the Rise and Progress of the Baptists in Virginia (Richmond, 1810). William Henry Sherwood, Life of Charles B. W. Gordon, Pastor of the First Baptist Church, Petersburg, Virginia, and History of the Church (Petersburg, 1885). Nancy Alenda Hillman, “Drawn Together, Drawn Apart: Black and White Baptists in Tidewater Virginia, 1800-1875” (Ph.D. diss., College of William and Mary, 2013). Henry H. Mitchell, Black Church Beginnings: The Long-Hidden Realities of the First Years (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2004. Richmond Dispatch, 2 May 1866. Harper’s Weekly, 19 May 1866. National Freedman, May 1866. Richmond Whig, 4 May 1866. Alexandria Gazette, 21 June 1866. Alexandria Daily Dispatch, 5 Nov. 1872. Pamphlet for Eastern Virginia Mass Meeting of SCLC, First Baptist Church, 28 March 1962.