WILLIAMSBURG— Colonial Williamsburg will raise the first wall of a reconstructed African Baptist Meeting House on Saturday, marking a milestone in rebuilding one of the nation’s earliest African American church congregations.
The ceremony, held in partnership with First Baptist Church of Williamsburg and the Let Freedom Ring Foundation, runs from 9 to 10:30 a.m. July 18 at the African Baptist Meeting House and Burial Ground, 105 S. Nassau St. The frame raising follows the ceremony, when participants will erect the first wall of a 16-by-32-foot reproduction of the 1805 structure.
The meeting house once served as a place of worship for free and enslaved Black residents of Williamsburg.
“We are elevating the truth that Black history is American History,” said Janice Canaday, Colonial Williamsburg’s African American community engagement manager and chair of the First Baptist Board of Directors. “Seeing these walls on Nassau Street proves what can happen when an institution listens to, honors and builds alongside the community it represents.”
Pastors from First Baptist Church and its “daughter” and “granddaughter” congregations — churches it helped establish over the years — will help secure the frame by hammering nine pegs through its base into the foundation, with children from the churches passing the pegs along.
Participants include Colonial Williamsburg CEO Carly Fiorina, Canaday, First Baptist Church Pastor Reginald F. Davis, Let Freedom Ring Foundation President Connie Harshaw, Jack Gary, associate vice president of Historic Resources and Kahler Family Director of Archaeology and Jennifer Wilkoski, director of architectural preservation and research at Colonial Williamsburg.
Historic Trades carpenters built six 4-foot corner braces to reinforce the timber frame, and members of descendant churches signed the braces before they’re sealed inside the structure — an echo of 2024, when community members signed bricks later used to pave the building’s foundation crawlspace.
Parking is available at the lot next to the Campbell Archaeology Center, 400 S. Nassau St., accessible from Newport Avenue, and at the Prince George Street Parking Garage, 230 N. Henry St.
