History
George Leile, a slave who in 1773 was the first African American licensed by the Baptists to preach in Georgia, played a part in the founding of the Savannah church by converting some of its early members. His initial licensing as a Baptist was to preach to slaves on plantations along the Savannah River, in Georgia and South Carolina.
Leile's master, a Baptist deacon, had freed him before the American Revolutionary War. Over the next few years, Leile converted and baptized slaves in the area. These included David George, one of eight slaves who were baptized and formed a congregation called the Silver Bluff Baptist Church in Aiken County, South Carolina, across the river from Augusta. George was appointed an elder and preacher, and attracted nearly 30 members over the next few years.
After the Revolutionary War started, in 1778 Leile made his way to the British-occupied city of Savannah, to ensure his security behind British lines. The British had offered freedom to slaves who escaped their rebel masters. After the British occupied Savannah, the Patriot master of David George and his followers fled to another area. All the members of the Silver Bluff church went to the city to go behind British lines for freedom. They joined with some of Leile's group. Others were converted by Leile's preaching, including Andrew Bryan and his wife Hannah in 1782. Bryan became a preacher and leader in the congregation.
In 1782 hundreds of blacks were evacuated from Savannah by the British, who transported many to Nova Scotia and other colonies, and some to London. Leile and his family sailed with the British for freedom to Jamaica. David George and his family went with Loyalists to Nova Scotia. Both founded Baptist congregations in their new locations. Later George and his family migrated to Sierra Leone, where he planted another Baptist church. [5]
Bryan, who had purchased his and his wife's freedom, was the only one of the three early black Baptist preachers in the colonies to stay in Savannah and the new United States. [5] He continued to preach and organize other slaves in the Savannah area despite persecution from local Episcopal authorities. He called people together as the church's first pastor.
Bryan led the First African Baptist Church to official recognition with 67 members on January 20, 1788, at their regular meeting place of Brampton's barn, approximately three miles west of Savannah. They were recognized by Rev. Abraham Marshall (a European-American minister) and his free black assistant Jesse Peter (who took the name Jesse Galphin). Galphin was also one of the founders of the Silver Bluff Baptist Church. Marshall examined and baptized members that day. [4] [6]
In 1794 the congregation built a frame structure on land Bryan had purchased the year before. They called the church Bryan Street African Baptist Church. [5] Bryan lived to see the church grow to over 400 members. [6] His brother Sampson, who assisted him, remained a slave. [4] In 1800 the congregation had grown to 700. By 1802, Bryan Street renamed itself First African Baptist Church, and two other black congregations were founded: Second African Baptist Church and the Ogeechee (Third) Baptist Church. [4]
In 1815, Andrew C. Marshall, Bryan's nephew, became pastor of First African Baptist. [4] In 1822, the First Colored Baptist Church and the Second Colored Baptist Church recombined and became the First African Baptist Church. The church organized the first Sunday School for African Americans (endorsed by the Independent Presbyterian Church) on July 26, 1826.
By 1830 under Marshall, the congregation of First African Baptist Church had grown to 2,417 members. [4] In 1832, the congregation had a serious split over doctrinal issues that took years to resolve. Some members felt that Marshall was too taken by the new ideas of Rev. Alexander Campbell. Marshall and more than 2,600 members left to found a congregation that kept the name of First African Baptist. They purchased a building to use a Franklin Square that had belonged to the First Baptist Church. [6]
In the 1850s, they constructed a new sanctuary facility across from Franklin Square. It has since been continuously occupied by First African Baptist.
The congregation at Bryan Street, numbering fewer than 200, kept the facility built under Andrew Bryan and took the name Third Baptist Church. [6] Later they renamed it First Bryan Baptist Church. [5]
As the Georgia Baptist association grew, there was competition among congregations to claim lines to founding core members and be declared the first church in the state. In 1888 at the Georgia Convention, claims were examined as to primacy of First African Baptist of Savannah and the First Bryan Baptist Church. The convention declared that First African Baptist of Savannah was the banner church, due largely to Marshall's leadership during the difficult years of the 1830s, which held his congregation together under the name of the original church. [5]
The Civil War and the Underground Railroad
The holes in the sanctuary flooring form a design meant to look like a tribal symbol. These were air holes for escaped slaves who would hide in the church, interpreted as in the pattern of a Kongo cosmogram, [7] [8] which served as a stop on the Underground Railroad (UGR). During the Civil War, the church housed runaway slaves in a 4-foot (1.2 m) space beneath the sanctuary floorboards. The 9-squared ceiling showed that the church was part of the UGR.
Civil Rights Movement
Participants in the early Civil Rights Movement in Savannah held weekly meetings at the church.
Pastors
- George Leile (1778–1787)
- Andrew Bryan (1788–1812)
- Andrew Cox Marshall (1812–1856)
- William J. Campbell (1857–1877)
- George Gibbons (1878–1884)
- Emanuel King Love (1885–1900)
- Sennica J. Thornton (1901–1907)
- Lamonta M. Williams (1909–1913)
- Malachi J. Williams (1915–1922)
- Edgar Garfield Thomas (1924–1928)
- Mack T. Walton(1929–1931)
- J. Alfred Wilson (1931–1939)
- Ralph Mark Gilbert (1939–1956)
- Curtis J. Jackson (1957–1961)
- William F. Stokes II (1963–1973)
- Lawrence McKinney (1973–1980)
- Thurmond N. Tillman (1982–Present)
Black churches primarily arose in the 19th century, during a time when race-based slavery and racial segregation were both commonly practiced in the United States. Blacks generally searched for an area where they could independently express their faith, find leadership, and escape from inferior treatment in White dominated churches. The Black Church is the faith and body of Christian denominations and congregations in the United States that predominantly minister to, and are also led by African Americans, as well as these churches' collective traditions and members.
Approximately 15.3% of Americans identify as Baptist, making Baptists the second-largest religious group in the United States, after Roman Catholics. Baptists adhere to a congregationalist structure, so local church congregations are generally self-regulating and autonomous, meaning that their broadly Christian religious beliefs can and do vary. Baptists make up a significant portion of evangelicals in the United States and approximately one third of all Protestants in the United States. Divisions among Baptists have resulted in numerous Baptist bodies, some with long histories and others more recently organized. There are also many Baptists operating independently or practicing their faith in entirely independent congregations.
Savannah Town, South Carolina is a defunct settlement that was located in the colonial years on the Savannah River below the Fall Line in present-day Aiken County. In the 1670s the Westo had a village here, but they were displaced by the Savannah in a trade war, and it became known by 1685 as Savannah Town. The English colony had traders who did a lucrative business in dressed skins with the Savannah Shawnee. Fortified as a frontier post, the settlement developed and ferry service was established across the river. The town was gradually overtaken by its competitor of Augusta, Georgia, established in 1735 five miles upriver and closer to Indian settlements. Traders here intercepted commerce, sending it to their port of Savannah on the coast. By 1740 Savannah Town was declining, and by 1765 the village was abandoned and the fort closed.
George Liele was an African American and emancipated slave who became the founding pastor of First Bryan Baptist Church and First African Baptist Church, in Savannah, Georgia (USA). He later would become a missionary to Jamaica.
Religion of Black Americans refers to the religious and spiritual practices of African Americans. Historians generally agree that the religious life of Black Americans "forms the foundation of their community life". Before 1775 there was scattered evidence of organized religion among Black people in the Thirteen Colonies. The Methodist and Baptist churches became much more active in the 1780s. Their growth was quite rapid for the next 150 years, until their membership included the majority of Black Americans.
David George was an African-American Baptist preacher and a Black Loyalist from the American South who escaped to British lines in Savannah, Georgia; later he accepted transport to Nova Scotia and land there. He eventually resettled in Freetown, Sierra Leone where he would eventually die. With other enslaved people, George founded the Silver Bluff Baptist Church in South Carolina in 1775, the first black congregation in the present-day United States. He was later affiliated with the First African Baptist Church of Savannah, Georgia. After migration, he founded Baptist congregations in Nova Scotia and Freetown, Sierra Leone. George wrote an account of his life, an important early slave narratives.
The city of Savannah, Georgia, the largest city and the county seat of Chatham County, Georgia, was established in 1733, and was the first colonial and state capital of Georgia. It is known as Georgia's first planned city and attracts millions of visitors, who enjoy the city's architecture and historic structures such as the birthplace of Juliette Gordon Low, the Telfair Academy of Arts and Sciences, the First African Baptist Church, Congregation Mickve Israel, and the Central of Georgia Railway roundhouse complex. Today, Savannah's downtown area is one of the largest National Historic Landmark Districts in the United States .[A]
The Silver Bluff Baptist Church was founded between 1774-1775 in Beech Island, South Carolina, by several enslaved African Americans who organized under elder David George.
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Historic First Bryan Baptist Church is an African-American church that was organized in Savannah, Georgia, by Andrew Bryan in 1788. Considered to be the Mother Church of Black Baptists, the site was purchased in 1793 by Bryan, a former slave who had also purchased his freedom. The first structure was erected there in 1794. By 1800 the congregation was large enough to split: those at Bryan Street took the name of First African Baptist Church, and Second and Third African Baptist churches were also established. The current sanctuary of First Bryan Baptist Church was constructed in 1873.
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Hugh Bryan (1699-1753) was an evangelical Christian and prominent white planter in the colony of South Carolina who mounted a brief but fiery challenge to the Anglican establishment and slaveholding hegemony. In 1742 he publicly stated and wrote that slavery was a sin and that God's punishment was evident and imminent. A Grand Jury indicted him for fomenting slave rebellion, a capital offense. Bryan recanted and apologized. He continued to support and promote the literacy of enslaved African Americans and their conversion to Christianity. He was a founder of the first non-Anglican church in South Carolina, the Stoney Creek Independent Presbyterian Chapel of Prince William Parish, in which both black and white worshippers were members. Andrew Bryan, an enslaved African American who worked for Hugh's brother, Jonathan, was among the worshippers. Andrew Bryan founded the First Bryan Baptist Church in Savannah.
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Jonathan Bryan was an American patriot originally from South Carolina but who moved Savannah, Georgia, where he assisted James Edward Oglethorpe in the foundation of Georgia's first colony. He also held several political offices in Georgia, and was a large landowner.
