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History and ministry
In 1808, a “group of African Americans who refused to accept segregated seating in the First Baptist Church of New York City formed the Abyssinian Baptist Church in lower Manhattan” (from their website). It is said that Ethiopian merchants visited the church to worship and were told to sit in a separate area. As they did not accept segregation in the House of God, they left the church. Several African Americans joined them. They then decided to found a church where all people could worship.
There is little historical evidence that the founders of the church included Ethiopians. At that time, “Abyssinian” , “Negro” and “African” could be used interchangeably (McNeal et al., Witness, p. 4).
Abyssinian Baptist Church was a prominent site for gospel music during the Harlem Renaissance during the 1920 and 1930s. In 1930/31, the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer spent a year at Union Theological Seminary and worshipped and ministered at Abyssinian Baptist Church.
Connect
» Follow Abyssinian Baptist Church [ABC] on Facebook
» Visit ABC’s YouTube channel
» Visit ABC’s website
Video
ABC pastor Calvin O. Butts III on the establishment of the congregation:
Thomas “Fats” Waller (1904-43), son of Abyssinian Baptist Church pastor Edward M. Waller, at the organ:
2019:
Further reading
McNeil, Genna Rae, Houston B. Roberson, Quinton H. Dixie and Kevin McGruder. Witness: Two Hundred Years of African-American Faith and Practice at the Abyssinian Baptist Church of Harlem, New York. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2013. [Google Books]
Williams, Reggie L. Bonhoeffer’s Black Jesus: Harlem Renaissance Theology and an Ethic of Resistance. 2nd edition, foreword by F. Schlingensiepen. Waco, TX: Baylor Univ. Press, 2021. [Description]