Thus when at Richmond in 1823 ninety-two free
negroes petitioned the Virginia legislature on behalf of themselves and
several hundred slaves, reciting that the Baptist churches used by the
whites had not enough room to permit their attendance and asking sanction
for the creation of a "Baptist African Church," the legislature withheld
its permission. In 1841, however, this purpose was in effect accomplished
when it was found that a negro church would not be in violation of the law
provided it had a white pastor. At that time the First Baptist Church
of Richmond, having outgrown its quarters, erected a new building to
accommodate its white members and left its old one to the negroes. The
latter were thereupon organized as the African Church with a white minister
and with the choice of its deacons vested in a white committee. In 1855,
when this congregation had grown to three thousand members, the
Ebenezer church was established as an offshoot, with a similar plan of
government.[61]
[Footnote 61: J.B. Earnest, _The Religious Development of the Negro in
Virginia_ (Charlottesville, 1914), pp. 72-83. For the similar trend of
church segregation in the Northern cities see J.
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