Richmond's historic houses of worship cannot be separated from the city's storied past. A young Patrick Henry sparked a revolution with his "Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death" speech inside St. John's Episcopal Church on Church Hill. Congregation Beth Ahabah, with its awe-inspiring windows and adjoining museum, is one of the oldest and most revered synagogues in the country. An interstate highway was moved to save the Sixth Mount Zion Baptist Church, where John Jasper asserted, "De Sun do move," in the most famous sermon ever preached in the city. Beloved local author Walter Griggs Jr. tells the compelling history of Richmond's most holy places.

Richmond's historic houses of worship cannot be separated from the city's storied past. A young Patrick Henry sparked a revolution with his "Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death" speech inside St. John's Episcopal Church on Church Hill. Congregation Beth Ahabah, with its awe-inspiring windows and adjoining museum, is one of the oldest and most revered synagogues in the country. An interstate highway was moved to save the Sixth Mount Zion Baptist Church, where John Jasper asserted, "De Sun do move," in the most famous sermon ever preached in the city. Beloved local author Walter Griggs Jr. tells the compelling history of Richmond's most holy places.

First African Baptist Church has served the Richmond community since 1780, proving to be a pillar of strength for African Americans in the former Confederate capital. The First African Baptist Church congregation endured slavery, the tumultuous years of the Civil War, Reconstruction, and repression from the white supremacist regime that dominated Virginia politics and persevered as a vibrant force through civil rights struggle and the daunting challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement. Such notables as Lott Carey, L. Douglas Wilder, Maggie Lena Walker, Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, Mary Lumpkin, and Henry "Box" Brown were church members.

Excerpt from Synagogue and Jewish Church: A Congregational History of North Carolina Emigrating from the self-governing Jewish communities of their European homelands, the immigrants made a first break with a traditional society. When they debarked in Richmond, Bal timore, and Charleston, they found Jewish communities with Viable congregations. Moving. Into the agrarian hinterland, they made a second break from cornmunal constraints and rabbinic authority. The country Jew, Rabbi Edward Calisch of Richmond wrote in 1900, is in measure cut off from the house of his breth ren. Like the limb of a tree that no longer draws nourishment from a life-giving trunk.3 Kosher food and a minyan were avail able in Baltimore or Richmond, but not reliably in New Bern or Rocky Mount. Jewish religious life in North Carolina organized slowly, as was the case generally in the South. In 1861 there were only 21 congregations in the region, and only Baltimore had a rabbi with verifiable c'fedentials.4 Before the Civil War not one congregation existed in North Carolina. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.