Our Antiracist Founding
Our congregation has an inspiring founding story. Nearly 70 years ago, our church was founded by Congregationalists who were committed to establishing a church in Northern Virginia where Black and White people could worship together during the Jim Crow era. In 1954, old Virginia was still in existence, totally segregated by race in schools, restaurants, drinking fountains, public facilities, and society in general. Although Brown vs. Board of Education had ruled that segregation in public schools was unconstitutional, Virginia was the leader of the “Massive Resistance” of the southern states. In this context, twenty young people decided to establish a new Congregational Church that would 1) teach a faith that is congruent with reason and 2) take action to achieve racial justice and equality.
We began meeting in Annandale Elementary School on Columbia Pike. To our knowledge, we were the first desegregated church in Virginia. The elementary school took notice, requiring the leadership to sign a new application for use of the school, on the condition that they would agree to abide by the Virginia law to segregate the races. The congregation agreed to abide by the law by designating, as seats of honor, as many front seats as necessary for people of color, and by sitting in each chair around and behind its Black members and visitors to welcome and surround them with love.
Our church’s first pastor then gathered a voluntary citizens’ group to explore steps toward public action against discrimination, and church members were also involved in voluntary groups or were involved professionally. One such effort was a summer day camp held on our grounds, called Higher Horizons, which was sponsored by our church, the Unitarian church, and the Fairfax City Council. It was first held during the summer just before the first Black students would enter White schools, so that they would get to know each other and have some friends of the other race. Our church was also involved with an interracial day care center in Annandale, and the “March on Washington” in 1963. In 1964, our first pastor also performed the wedding of a White woman and Japanese American man, when it was illegal for a White person to marry anyone with “blood other than Caucasian.”
