
Rebuilding one of the nation's oldest Black churches to begin at Juneteenth ceremony
The First Baptist Church of Williamsburg officially established itself in 1776, although parishioners met before then in fields and under trees in defiance of laws that prevented African Americans from congregating. Free and enslaved members erected the original church house around 1805, laying the foundation with recycled bricks.
Reconstructing the 16-foot by 32-foot (5-meter by 10-meter) building will help demonstrate that 'Black history is American history,' First Baptist Pastor Reginald F. Davis told The Associated Press before the Juneteenth groundbreaking.
'Oral history is one thing but to have an image to go along with the oral history makes a greater impact on the psyche of oppressed people,' said Davis, who leads the current 215-member congregation in a 20th Century church that is less than a mile from the original site. 'Black Americans have been part of this nation's history before and since the Declaration of Independence.'
The original building was destroyed by a tornado in 1834. First Baptist's second structure, built in 1856, stood there for a century. But the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, a living history museum, bought the property in 1956 and turned the space into a parking lot.
Colonial Williamsburg had covered the costs of building First Baptist's current church house. But for decades it failed to tell the church's pioneering history and the stories of other colonial Black Americans.
In recent years, the museum has placed a growing emphasis on telling a more complete story about the nation's founding. Colonial Williamsburg's rebuilding of the church is an opportunity to tell Black history and resurrect the stories of those who originally built it.
Rebuilding First Baptist's original meetinghouse will fill an important historical gap, while bolstering the museum's depiction of Virginia's 18th century capital through interpreters and restored buildings. More than half of the 2,000 people who lived in Williamsburg at the time were Black, many of them enslaved.
Rev. James Ingram is an interpreter who has for 27 years portrayed Gowan Pamphlet, First Baptists' pastor when the original church structure was built. Pamphlet was an enslaved tavern worker who followed his calling to preach, sermonizing equality, despite the laws that prohibited large gatherings of African Americans out of fear of slave uprisings.
'He is a precursor to someone like Frederick Douglass, who would be the precursor to someone like Martin Luther King Jr.,' Ingram said. 'Gowan Pamphlet was leading the charge.'
The museum's archaeologists uncovered the original church's foundation in 2021 , prompting Pastor Davis to say then that it was 'a rediscovery of the humanity of a people.'
'This helps to erase the historical and social amnesia that has afflicted this country for so many years,' he said.
The archaeologists also located 62 graves , while experts examined three sets of remains and linked them to the congregation.
Scientists at William & Mary's Institute for Historical Biology said the teeth of a Black male in his teens indicated some kind of stress, such as malnutrition or disease.
'It either represents the conditions of an enslaved childhood or far less likely — but possibly — conditions for a free African American in childhood,' Michael Blakey, the institute's director, said in 2023 .
In the early 1800s, the congregation acquired the property for the original church from a local white merchant. The land was low, soft and often soggy — hardly ideal for building, said Jack Gary, Colonial Williamsburg's executive director of archaeology.
But the church's congregants, many of whom were skilled tradespeople, made it work by flipping bricks on their side and making other adjustments to lay a level foundation.
'It was a marvel that they were able to build a structure there, but also that the structure persists and even grows bigger,' Gary said, adding that the church was later expanded.
Based on their excavation, archaeologists surmise there was no heat source, such as a fireplace, no glass in the windows and no plaster finish, Gary said.
About 50 people could have sat comfortably inside, possibly 100 if they were standing. The congregation numbered about 500, which included people on surrounding plantations. Services likely occurred outside the church as well.
White planters and business owners were often aware of the large gatherings, which technically were banned, while there's documentary evidence of some people getting caught, Gary said.
Following Nat Turner's rebellion in 1831, which killed more than 50 white people in Virginia's Southampton County, the congregation was led by white pastors, though it was Black preachers doing the work, Gary said. The tornado destroyed the structure a few years later.
The museum is rebuilding the 1805 meetinghouse at its original site and will use common wood species from the time: pine, poplar and oak, said Matthew Webster, the museum's executive director of architectural preservation and research. The boards are already being cut. Construction is expected to finish next year.
The windows will have shutters but no glass, Webster said, while a concrete beam will support the new church directly over its original foundation, preserving the bricks.
'When we build the earliest part of the church, we will put bricks on their sides and will lay them in that strange way because that tells the story of those individuals struggling to quickly get their church up,' Webster said. 'And then when we build the addition, it will be this formal foundation that really shows the establishment of the church.'
Janice Canaday, who traces her lineage to First Baptist, said Williamsburg's Black community never forgot its original location or that its graves were paved over in the 1950s.
'They will never be able to expunge us from the landscape,' said Canaday, who is also the museum's African American community engagement manager. 'It doesn't matter if you take out the building. It doesn't matter if you ban books. You will never be able to pull that root up because that root is so deep.'
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


CBS News
11 minutes ago
- CBS News
Manhattan Project radioactive waste is not coming to Michigan, Wayne County officials say
Radioactive soil from New York that was expected to come to Metro Detroit has been blocked, Wayne County officials say. In a statement on July 23, County Executive Warren Evans says the waste will be shipped to another state, but did not say where exactly the shipment will go. "Wayne County was the original destination for that toxic material before Judge Kevin Cox of the Wayne County Circuit Court granted a temporary restraining order, which was sparked by strenuous community pushback," Evans said. "This pushback molded a collaborative effort involving citizens, communities and government entities that resulted in a successful lawsuit. Although I certainly do not envy the community that will receive this waste, it was my job to fight for the people of Wayne County and that's what I did to the best of my ability." The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was managing the removal of low-level radioactive soil from Lewiston, New York, a legacy of the Manhattan Project, the secret government project to develop atomic bombs during World War II that was featured in the 2023 movie "Oppenheimer." In August 2024, it was announced that the waste was coming to Wayne County, prompting community members to file a lawsuit. A month later, Canton Township, Van Buren Township, Romulus and Belleville were awarded an injunction against Wayne Disposal for accepting the waste. At the time, elected officials, including two members of Congress, claimed that they were left in the dark about plans to bring the shipment of World War II-era radioactive soil to Michigan. It was not the first time waste was set to come to Michigan. In February 2023, officials halted a shipment of toxic waste that was set to come to Wayne County from East Palestine, Ohio, after a train derailment. Evans said then that the county was unaware of any waste coming to the area. Note: The video above previously aired on Sept. 18, 2024.


CBS News
11 minutes ago
- CBS News
Hundreds of tiles in Denver International Airport's new Great Hall cracked and missing grout
If you've been to Denver International Airport lately, you might have noticed the brand-new tiling that's part of the Great Hall Project is cracked in many places, and some tiles are held together with nothing but tape. Airport officials say some of the damage is from construction equipment rolling over the new flooring, and other tiles, they say, may have been cracked by train vibrations or the Zamboni cleaning machine. But Patricia Watson, a construction management attorney, is convinced the problem is more serious, "It's actually cracked and failing everywhere," she says. "You can't walk through the airport and go 100 feet in any direction and not find grout falling or popping out." A frequent flyer, Watson first noticed scuff marks and scratches in the new flooring, "I think it was a terrible choice to put white tile in an airport with glitter in it. It looks filthy all the time." But she says, a poor color choice is one thing, poor construction is another. Watson is an attorney with nearly 30 years' experience in commercial real estate, including construction defect litigation. She says she's managed the construction of more than a million square feet of commercial office projects in Colorado and says whoever managed the tile installation in the airport's Great Hall botched the job. "It clearly didn't get adhered to the floor properly. There's definitely places where there's air under the tile. When somebody stands on that section, it doesn't have support under it, so it cracks the tile. And it's just going to get worse." She says everywhere grout is missing, the tile will eventually crack, "I think there was poor construction supervision, or it would not look like this right now. I counted 100 places on the 5th floor just on this side where it's cracked." Airport officials say they did their own count after CBS Colorado contacted them and found 266 cracked tiles out of just over 21,000 tiles installed on the 5th and 6th levels. That's about 1%, which they say is within industry standard. They released a statement saying, "The cracking can be caused by issues other than installation, which may include structural vibrations throughout the terminal from construction, train movement, passenger movement, foundation movement, cleaning equipment, maintenance equipment and other variables." Some of the damage, they say, is "due to heavy equipment and material deliveries, and replacement of these tiles was planned and budgeted with the program costs." Once work is complete, they said the tiles will be replaced. They insisted that "There are no product issues, warranty issues, or installer issues." Officials say they didn't install the tiles at the end of the project because it's more efficient to replace individual tiles than rip out temporary flooring and install new flooring. The tiles, they say, were imported from Italy and cost $242 per tile. They used "travel paths," they say, to minimize the cost of replacing them, and say their "contingency budget" will cover most of the costs, and repairs will not prolong the project. Until those repairs happen, Watson says, the flooring fiasco will be the first impression visitors have of Denver, "Should be the pride and joy of our city, not something that's embarrassing when you walk through the airport and you see 150 cracked tiles." Watson believes installers used the wrong type of grout, which she says could be the fault of the architect or the contractor. Airport officials say they recently changed to a different type of grout. They also say that, after an inspection by a third-party expert, they began videotaping the installation of every tile and have seen very few cracked tiles. With 83 million travelers a year, they say that they're continually making repairs, noting the old granite floor also saw cracking, and they are currently repairing concourse floors. The Great Hall project, which involves renovating the fifth and sixth levels of the terminal, began in 2018 and was supposed to be finished in 2021. The original $770 million price tag has nearly doubled to $1.3 billion. In 2019, CBS Colorado was the first to report on problems with concrete. That increased costs by millions of dollars and put the project years behind schedule. The airport switched contractors and now says it will be finished in 2027.
Yahoo
39 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Puerto Rico Lottery results: See winning numbers for Pega 2, Pega 3 on July 23, 2025
The Puerto Rico Lottery offers several draw games for those aiming to win big. Lottery players in Puerto Rico can choose from popular national games like the Powerball, which is available in the vast majority of states around the U.S. Other games include the Pega 2, Pega 3, Pega 4 and more. Big lottery wins around the U.S. include a lucky lottery ticketholder in California who won a $1.27 billion Mega Millions jackpot in December 2024. See more big winners here. And if you do end up cashing a jackpot, here's what experts say to do first. Here's a look at Wednesday, July 23, 2025 results for each game: Winning Pega 2 numbers from July 23 drawing Day: 6-3, Wild: 1 Noche: 1-7, Wild: 4 Check Pega 2 payouts and previous drawings here. Winning Pega 3 numbers from July 23 drawing Day: 5-9-4, Wild: 1 Noche: 2-5-3, Wild: 4 Check Pega 3 payouts and previous drawings here. Winning Pega 4 numbers from July 23 drawing Day: 5-3-7-3, Wild: 1 Noche: 3-5-7-8, Wild: 4 Check Pega 4 payouts and previous drawings here. Feeling lucky? Explore the latest lottery news & results When are the Puerto Rico Lottery drawings held? Powerball: 11:59 p.m. Monday, Wednesday and Saturday. Pega 2, 3, 4: 2 p.m. (Day) and 9 p.m. (Night) daily. Revancha X2: 9 p.m. Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Loto Cash: 9 p.m. Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Winning lottery numbers are sponsored by Jackpocket, the official digital lottery courier of the USA TODAY Network. Where can you buy lottery tickets? Tickets can be purchased in person at gas stations, convenience stores and grocery stores. Some airport terminals may also sell lottery tickets. You can also order tickets online through Jackpocket, the official digital lottery courier of the USA TODAY Network, in these U.S. states and territories: Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Idaho, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Puerto Rico, Washington D.C., and West Virginia. The Jackpocket app allows you to pick your lottery game and numbers, place your order, see your ticket and collect your winnings all using your phone or home computer. Jackpocket is the official digital lottery courier of the USA TODAY Network. Gannett may earn revenue for audience referrals to Jackpocket services. GAMBLING PROBLEM? CALL 1-800-GAMBLER, Call 877-8-HOPENY/text HOPENY (467369) (NY). 18+ (19+ in NE, 21+ in AZ). Physically present where Jackpocket operates. Jackpocket is not affiliated with any State Lottery. Eligibility Restrictions apply. Void where prohibited. Terms: This results page was generated automatically using information from TinBu and a template written and reviewed by a USA Today editor. You can send feedback using this form. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Puerto Rico Lottery results, winning numbers: Pega 2, Pega 3, more