Existing comment:
City Within a City
Greater U Street Heritage Trail
7 Like a Village
Churches have deep roots in the life of this historic African American community. A number of congregations in this immediate area, including Lincoln Temple United Church of Christ on this corner and Vermont Avenue Baptist Church just one block away, date back to the Civil War. At the time, Union Soldiers at Camp Barker at 13th and R Streets and the Wisewell Barracks at 7th and P Streets offered protection and assistance for freedmen fleeing the South.
These Churches are a fraction of the religious institutions to be found everywhere in this neighborhood -- in storefronts, in grand buildings with nineteenth-century towers and spires, and in modern structures. In addition to serving as places of worship, they have been and continue to be centers of community activity.
They have been filled with music, not only by church choirs., but by such internationally known artists as Leontyne Price and Roland Hayes. The ministers and members of neighborhood churches have also been in the forefront of the struggle for equal rights. Strategy meetings, lectures, and rallies have most often found a base of operations in church basements and Sunday School rooms.
The families of the neighborhood developed deep ties, sometimes for generations, with other families in these churches , and there was much visiting back and forth between congregations. These relationships were further repeated and deepened in the schools. One old-timer put this way -- "It was like a village." |