First African Baptist Church

This being Sunday seems an appropriate time to tell you about my visit to the First African Baptist Church here in Savannah.  It is a church built by slaves and goes back to pre-Revolutionary days.  The present church building is about the fourth building and was built in the 1850s.  The stories I heard from our young guide, who is a member of the congregation, were ones I had never really imagined despite the fact that I felt I knew a bit about American history and the Underground Railroad in particular.

The building of the present church occurred when the congregation had the opportunity to purchase the land for $1500.  I have only a hazy idea of how much that was in the 1850s but it must have been huge for them.  The congregation had some money but needed another $500.  The sellers said they would give the congregation six months to come up with that extra $500.  They succeeded.  They succeeded because the members gave, even the money they had saved intending to purchase freedom for themselves and their families.  I simply cannot imagine it.  Giving up your chance for freedom because your pastor asked you to contribute to this chance to have a church to worship in.  How do you balance those things?  How do you even begin to think about it?  I have heard of living your faith.  This may be one of the greatest examples of it I have ever encountered.  These people, these slaves, gave not only their money.  Once the land was theirs, they built the church with their own hands.  As our guide reminded us, the slaves were the ones who did the labor in that world.  They were the masons, the carpenters, the workers.  But first they had to get permission from their owners to do the work, to leave their plantations and walk anywhere from two miles to twenty, after the work on the plantation was done, to the church site.  Like the Israelites before them, they made the bricks.  Then they built the church I was sitting in.