America's oldest black congregation celebrates 225 years

Posted 8:42AM on Sunday 22nd December 2002 ( 22 years ago )

SAVANNAH - Every Sunday, the Rev. Thurmond N. Tillman preaches behind walls four-bricks thick constructed in 1859 by slaves who worked at night after days toiling in the fields. The wooden floorboards outside Tillman's office are pocked with holes drilled so that escaped slaves could breathe while hiding in the crawlspace underneath. But the First African Baptist Church traces its roots to long before the Civil War, to a black minister who organized his first congregation in 1777, the year after America declared independence from Britain. This month, First African celebrates its 225th anniversary a longevity many historians say makes it the nation's oldest surviving black congregation. The church persevered despite a history as tumultuous as it is long. Its founder had to flee to Jamaica after the Revolutionary War. His successor was beaten for preaching to blacks. The church's third pastor weathered an internal feud in which parishioners carried weapons to church. Despite the struggles, the membership of mostly slaves managed in 1832 to scrape together $1,500 to purchase the land where the church stands today, overlooking Franklin Square in downtown Savannah. To Tillman, First African's 17th pastor, it's nothing short of a miracle. ``I'm looking at a divine plan,'' Tillman said. ``If you think what would've given them freedom, it would have been money. But they made a conscious decision to use that money and build a church to the Lord. They said, `We're going to trust God with our freedom.''' Now the membership of 1,200 faces a similar financial challenge raising $2.5 million to restore the church close to its original appearance. Stucco covering the original bricks will be stripped off. Wood-paneled walls from the 1960s will come down. And the church's 116-foot steeple, toppled by a hurricane a century ago, will be replaced. Architects have worked for 27 years on plans to give First African Baptist a historic facelift. ``I'm not aware of another building of this significance in Savannah that hasn't already been redone,'' said Patrick Shay, the project architect. Overlooking Franklin Square from the church is a stained-glass portrait of its founder, George Liele, whose ordination in 1775 was nothing short of revolutionary. After the religious revivals of the Great Awakening swept through the South in the 1740s and '50s, many blacks attended church with whites who saw religion as a means to quell slave uprisings. But Liele was given greater liberties. A white minister ordained him, his master freed him and encouraged Liele to preach. In 1777, Liele wrote he had formed his own black congregation. ``That was new. That was revolutionary,'' said Andrew Billingsley, a sociologist who teaches African-American studies at the University of South Carolina. Through the church Liele started, even enslaved blacks succeeded asserting some independence from whites, whose efforts to close the church they thwarted for nearly a century. ``That the slaves could do that, exercise that authority and defy the white authorities, that's a fantastic story,'' said Billingsley, whose book ``Mighty Like a River'' dedicated three chapters to First African. ``But only in the church could that happen.'' Liele's Savannah ministry was short. He had allied himself with the British, so Liele feared reprisals when they lost the war in 1782 and fled to Jamaica. The Rev. Andrew Bryan, another slave who purchased his freedom, continued Liele's ministry. He paid the price with his own blood. Many whites became hostile to the growing number of blacks worshipping independently. Some were concerned about slaves learning to read. Some worried about them plotting an uprising. Others feared their prayers. ``Slave holders found it very uncomfortable that slaves were praying for freedom,'' said Sandy Martin, a professor of religion at the University of Georgia. ``That may seem novel today let them pray all they want. But people believed in the efficacy of prayer.'' So a mob of whites one day dragged Bryan to a public square, where they whipped him until he bled. According to a church history written in 1888 by the Rev. E.K. Love, the lashing stopped soon after Bryan told his assailants: ``You may kill me, but I will preach the gospel. If you would stop me from preaching, cut off my head.'' The church purchased its current location under Bryan's successor, the Rev. Andrew Marshall. But Marshall's leadership also led to a split within the congregation that's still felt 170 years later. A white evangelist who preached that God created all men equal black and white had come to Savannah. White Baptists considered him a heretic, but Marshall allowed him to preach at First African. In 1832, Savannah's white Baptist Association ordered First African to replace Marshall. Marshall vowed to stay, but one of his deacons turned against him. The rift in the congregation bordered on violence. ``The people carried clubs, brickbats and other such implements of war to the church with them,'' Love wrote in 1888. ``There was danger of a fight in the church at any time.'' The congregation split. Most stayed with Marshall. The rest formed a new church that exists today as First Bryan Baptist Church. Both churches still claim the title of the nation's oldest existing black congregation, though First Bryan still marks its founding year as 1788, when Bryan became pastor. ``What I generally tell my class is there are two congregations that emerged from the oldest,'' Martin said. ``I don't think First Bryan's claim should be dismissed. But First African has the name.'' Church deacon Harry James, 70, has attended First African since the 1940s. He's given countless tours to visitors curious about its history. But First African is foremost an active church, he says, not a museum. ``Believe it or not, we don't dwell on it nearly as much as we should,'' said James. ``Even though it's a historic place, we have to use it as a house of worship, not to express what happened in the beginning.''

http://accesswdun.com/article/2002/12/186348

America&#39;s oldest black congregation celebrates 225 years

America's oldest black congregation celebrates 225 years