Black Historic Williamsburg Church Shores Up Security For Nation’s 250 Celebration

By Rosaland Tyler
Associate Editor
New Journal and Guide

Williamsburg’s First Baptist Church, home to one of the oldest Black Christian congregations in the nation, is increasing security before the nation’s 250th birthday celebration begins this summer.

Anticipating a higher volume of tourists, the church is also aware of historical facts. Places of worship have been considered “soft targets” in numerous attacks in the past decade. An avowed White supremacist, for example, shot and killed nine congregants in a 2015 attack during a Bible study class at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C. Four years later, in 2019 three predominantly Black churches in Louisiana were burned during a 10-day period. Earlier this month, a security guard was injured in an attack on a Michigan synagogue.

A 2025 report by Domestic Religious Freedom, a nonprofit, tracked the number of  incidents of hostility toward U.S. churches that occurred in calendar year 2024.

This included vandalism, arson, bomb threats, gun-related incidents, and other crimes, according to the report titled “Hostility Against Churches:”

“The previous six years (2018-2023) featured an increase in hostile incidents against U.S. churches. FRC identified 50 incidents in 2018, 83 in 2019, 55 in 2020, and 98 in 2021. The total number of incidents in 2023 (485) was more than double the number identified in 2022 (198),” the report noted.

“In 2024, the number of incidents leveled off with 415. This total from one 12-month span is nearly equal to the findings from FRC’s very first report (420), which covered 57 months.”

Describing the report, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, who served as chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom during President Trump’s first term, said, “Religious freedom is seldom handed to the passive; it is claimed by those who exercise it even when a hostile culture says they may not. This report clearly shows religious freedom faces substantial threats here at home.”

 Deacon Nat Brown, head of security at First Baptist, said, “We want to make it as safe as possible. Not only for the congregation members, but the visitors to the church as well.”

First Baptist has added more cameras, increased the number of security guards and will have metal detectors by June. The church is already receiving more requests for tours, which will run six days a week starting in June.

“We are mindful not to make the church seem too much of a fortification,” Brown said. “We don’t want to hinder people from coming to the church or feeling they can come.”

Artifacts inside of the church include signature items from former President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama, who visited the church during its 240th anniversary. The former president rang the church’s freedom bell in a video that is available on the church’s website.

The first church was built in 1805. Enslaved and free Blacks held services under trees in the woods and built the first church building, which was destroyed by a tornado and the next, built in 1856, was torn down in 1956. It was transformed into a parking lot by Colonial Williamsburg, which paid for First Baptist’s third and current location on Scotland Street.

The historic church is preparing an exhibit with the Let Freedom Ring Foundation. It was created to protect and preserve its building, landscape and artifacts. The church is preparing its exhibit space in the FBC Heritage Center, which will be ready by the June tours. More than 200 volunteers will help with tours of the church and exhibit, which will include replicas of items from its prior building’s sanctuary.

“It’s a story of faith, it’s a story of resilience and it’s a story of my community,” Board Member Johnette Gordon Weaver recently told WHRO.

In addition to hosting the Obamas, the church hosted a 1962 visit by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., as well as a Queen Elizabeth II visit during her 2007 visit to Williamsburg.

Church and foundation members said they enjoy sharing the church’s history, which also includes stories about its enslaved and free members.

“It’s now a national treasure and people are coming here just for the sheer joy of being inside this building and hearing the story,” said Foundation President Connie Harshaw.

Congregant Gordon Weaver said the church plans to celebrate its legacy. “I could be in Germany or Timbuktu, I’m going to tell the story of First Baptist Church and it tickles me to be able to do so.”