[Sound of church bells] [Church bell tolls] [Church organ music] [Dog barking] MOST REV.

MICHAEL B. CURRY: St.

James was one of the premier historically Black congregations.

And actually, it was Absalom Jones who sent William Levington, one of his sons in the ministry, so to speak, below the Mason Dixon line.

Um, or as I believe he said, in the land where enslavement and freedom co-mingle.

Baltimore was a place where you had both, enslaved and freed Africans.

So they were kind of not one population but two different communities.

And he felt that there needed to be a church where all of them could go.

So I remember that story probably from the age of 10, when I could actually slip into my father's study and actually read his books.

So I bet I was about 9 or 10.

So that's how I knew about St.

James and in many respects, St.

James, was a parable um, of of what the historically Black congregations have been, um and can become.

[Choir Singing] ♪ I'm going to let it shine ♪ ♪ This little light of mine ♪ REV.

DR.

ALLEN ROBINSON: St.

James has a very engaged worshiping community.

It's a parish that takes very seriously liturgy.

Liturgy was always an important feature of the life of the congregation, not only musically, but it was the first parish I had served where the worship was more than just the singing of hymns or the listening to a recital, but it was emotive.

It moved people emotionally.

And you could tell.

I've been in services at St.

James when I saw people tear up.

I saw people moved ecstatically as an expression of the worship and adoration of God.

Over my time there, I- countless visitors would visit the parish, not only for it's uh, historical uh, because of its historical nature, but they would visit the parish because uh they also heard of its worship experience.

Uh those who have visited before, uh visitors would come and say, my friend came and visited and said, I have to come to St.

James.

I need to come and be a part, worship in this community and people left, refreshed, renewed.

Uh and a sense of having worshiped in the Black church experience.

[Footsteps] [Sound of door opening] [Church Organ Music] REV.

CANON STEPHANIE SPELLERS: Beloved of God at the historic St.

James Episcopal Church.

Today, you kick off the celebration of your 200th birthday.

[Congregation applauding] REV.

CANON SPELLERS: Of course, it all started with God's calling on Father William Levington.

He was ordained in March of 1824 at the mother church, the historic St.

Thomas African Episcopal Church in Philadelphia.

But from there, he could have chosen to minister in the relative safety of free states.

He could have remained disconnected from the suffering of his enslaved siblings, but no.

Instead, Father Levington chose to head below the Mason Dixon line before the Civil War, to do what others said was impossible, to found a new church, the first church on Southern soil, where enslaved and free people of African descent would worship and grow into the fullness of Christ together as equals.

That's your story, St.

James.

That's your ministry, that's your DNA.

And so if you're going to look back and celebrate something this year, celebrate all the ways that you have stood for the liberation of Black bodies, minds, and spirits.

As you blow out your 200 candles and make a wish, I hope you will ask God to equip and empower you to be what you were founded to be: A community of equality and love that welcomes everyone to discover their belovedness, power, and freedom in Christ.

That's your light.

Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.

Amen.

[Congregation claps] LAWRENCE JACKSON: St.

James was founded as the St.

James' first African Protestant Episcopal Church in Baltimore in 1824 by a man named William Levington.

[Amazing Grace plays] JACKSON: Baltimore was the center of much religious activity.

Uh Maryland, of course, was a state, was founded on the principle of religious freedom.

So there was always a large Catholic population here and I suspect that after the launching of, you know, sort of two major Methodist strands of Black religious worship, that there was just sort of active uh religious worship here in the city at the end of the 18th century and movements of Black independence.

[Sound of horse hooves and carriages] [Gentle Music] JACKSON: There was an incredible kind of dynamism here in the city.

It was also owing to the uh the huge population of freed people.

When the church was founded in 1824, there would have been 10- 10,500 freed people in Baltimore.

About 4,300 people would have been enslaved.

So the idea, I mean so the idea of slavery itself was kind of turned on its head.

Frederick Douglass is growing up in Baltimore where the average Black person is free.

Um it is the unusual Black person who was enslaved.

And this is where, you know, a great part of Douglass' ambition for freedom is nurtured and stoked, um here in Baltimore, but it was also a feature of, you know, sort of the day-to-day life and experience of seeing so many Black people at their own liberty.

And who were successful in a variety of trades.

Um, Levington was an extraordinary freedman of that era.

When he came to Baltimore, he was immediately the best Black educated person really for quite some distance.

But it's important to remember that during the period that Levington was most active in the late 1820s and in the 1830s, he died in the mid 1830s.

But it's important to recall that the people who emerged from the city were literally the most erudite African-Americans, bar none in North America.

And I'm talking about Frederick Douglass and Francis Ellen Watkins Harper.

I mean, they were the leading writers, the leading thinkers, the leading um Black abolitionists um without any exception.

And it's so necessary to remember that they were being produced in the 1830s and in the 1840s in Baltimore.

And St.

James played a huge part.

[Street traffic] REBECCA HACKETT: William Levington began St.

James um with a school because of his being taught through the Lancasterian uh method.

That he could use that same Lancasterian method, which is the use of needlework.

[Laughs] It was the use of needlework in thinking that if you can teach a large group of people, let's say 300 people, how to do needlework, you can use the same method to teach a mass of people how to read.

So as they're working, they're learning.

And to have an African-American man, to sit down and do needlework, you know, with that passion that he had, to create uh a vision of a basket and underneath the basket is a beehive.

It could just, that beehive, those busy bees working, you know, to preserve and protect that beehive.

You can almost see, if you look at the sampler, um, opposites working together.

So you see the unity that he had with the vine around the whole sampler, like free and enslaved people coming together to worship in the edifice that we now call St.

James.

[Crickets chirping] JACKSON: After the Nat Turner Revolt in Southampton, Virginia, race relations became... Black- Black people in cities like Baltimore became more closely monitored.

And um you know, it was just, it was increasingly difficult to maintain independent Black institutions.

Um, there were many mobs that roamed Baltimore quite freely.

Sometimes Black people were at a great deal of uh peril.

Uh certainly in cities like Philadelphia in the 1830s, uh there were i-incredible race riots, much loss of life and arson.

That did not happen in Baltimore, but uh Levington himself in 1835, you know, he sort of combines with the uh ministers from the Bethel Church and the Sharp Street Church, and they are writing uh to the newspaper to demonstrate their loyalty and to forestall, you know, sort of the vengeance of um, you know sort of the white mobs or, uh you know, just... hostility in the city.

REBECCA HACKETT: After Levington passed in 1836, the church uh had a down period.

And in that down period, you had seen these transition things happening.

And old St.

Paul's Church was one of the churches in Baltimore to help them as far as they're getting started.

It also helped to provide interim uh rectors during this time of transition.

JACKSON: And it's sort of from that point, um, you know, with um a couple of decades of... a couple lean decades uh before um the church really is able to um flourish again under the leadership of George F. Bragg.

REBECCA HACKETT: Reverend Bragg came from Warrington, Virginia uh and was born at the time of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863.

Uh, he came to Baltimore City with a wealth of knowledge of how to um, build a church, to build a church up.

So, I would say he was one of the most, second to Levington, one of the most famous uh, rectors of St.

James Church.

JACKSON: George F. Bragg is is basically the founder of the modern St.

James Church.

You know, sort of around the time that he becomes associated with St.

James, which would be like either the late 1880s, early 1890s, it becomes almost an itinerant church.

I'm not sure if they were having, were able to have regular services.

And, Bragg has this amazing energy um and acuity.

REBECCA HACKETT: He would go door to door.

He was known for going door to door to know who were the congregants at- of St.

James.

JACKSON: He was able to cultivate relationships with uh, traditional white American Episcopalians and beyond, in the city, enabling him to continue to develop the institution or to, in some senses, rebuild the institution and to make it something that endures to this day.

The church that we go to today in Lafayette Square, um Bragg led the congregation to that building in 1932.

But even in 1921, when the Church of the Ascension was an all white church, you know, really a proudly all white church and a church that saw itself as a bulwark against Black migration from the parts of the city that were crumbling and to pursue better lives up Druid Hill Avenue, up McCullough Street, up Pennsylvania Avenue, up Fremont Street.

So, St.

James in 1932 was very near to the outer range of uh Black settlement.

And even at that point, Bragg had somehow um figured out a way to be involved and to be understood and recognized and respected as a Black clergy person.

He was a tireless advocate for Black rights and gave himself to the cause of Black uplift.

He was a member of the Niagara Movement, which creates the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

And he was also an active journalist.

I mean, he published the history of Black Marylanders.

He recorded the history of Black Episcopalians, the Black Episcopalian clergy.

He was the founder of a newspaper, the African American Ledger, which he merged with John Murphy's newspaper creating the Afro-American newspaper, one of the longest standing and most significant.

And in the 1940s, uh one of the most politically important newspapers um that is still published to this day.

By the time of Bragg's death in the 40s, St.

James was a church of a good portion of the Black professional class and uh would then go on to produce um offshoot Black Episcopalian churches in Baltimore.

[Street sounds] REV.

CHARLES MERCER: I had known about St.

James, uh even before I was an Episcopal minister.

I was- I was first ordained in the Roman Catholic church, but St.

James had a tremendous name in the West Baltimore community.

I'd always thought of St.

James as being like the Mecca of the Afr- African American church here in Baltimore.

But I had heard about them needing uh, a priest here because their rector had gone, taken another assignment.

I- I came here two weeks before I was supposed to start just, just to see what the service was like and get a feel of the church.

Soon as I came in, you know, you could- you could feel the spirit in this church.

It's like, because it has so much history to it, it's just a spirit here that kind of surrounds you when you walk in the door.

And so I said, "Wow," I said "this place has something special about it."

Thank you for touching us all with the gift of life.

We thank you for all the blessings that we will receive just in this day alone.

[Gentle music plays] JACOB HOWARD: My family has been at St.

James for five generations.

My mother actually lived across the street where the vacant lot is now.

And uh she grew up here in Baltimore, she went to Douglas High School.

And when they moved here from New Jersey, of course they moved from across the street and they see St.

James, so they joined St.

James.

And I've been here ever since.

VERNA JACKSON: My mother and her family were Episcopalians in South Hill.

CHARLES CEPHAS: My father grew up in Sharp Street Baptist Church.

My mother, Grace Church in Catonsville.

ELISE MASON: My mom was actually one of those uh teens, she was a teenager at the time, that came with Father Bragg to the current building.

So that was in 1933.

HELEN ANDERSON: Well, I was born in St.

Paul, Minnesota, and I came to Baltimore to teach school in 1970.

RICK HACKETT: My children, my five children, are the fifth generation at St.

James.

It started with my great-great-grandmother.

VERNA JACKSON: And then in the course of time, as we became toddlers and little people, she did try us at a number of Sunday schools that would have been within the, close to the community, walking distance.

CHARLES CEPHAS: The story goes that when they got married, my uh, grandfather sat them down and said, "I don't want your first argument to be about, where are we going to worship?"

V. JACKSON: And eventually my father, at least they tell the story, he insisted that if you want them to be raised as Episcopalians, then take them to St.

James, don't keep going between the Presbyterians and the Episcopalians.

ANDERSON: And my priest at home at St.

Philip's Episcopal Church, I said, "where should I worship?"

I had no idea.

And he said, "go to St.

James Episcopal Church."

CEPHAS: He said, "let me suggest a church in Baltimore called St.

James."

V. JACKSON: So my earliest memories of any church is St.

James at Lafayette Square.

CEPHAS: Well, they came in and the rest is history.

[Chuckles] They made one stop.

Um, so I've been here all my life.

ANDERSON: So that makes me a 53-year member of St.

James.

V. JACKSON: Being an Episcopalian really colored my life a lot.

ANDERSON: This church has a history of great rectors, George Freeman Bragg, who of course I did not know, but I feel like I know him because I heard so much about him.

V. JACKSON: Bragg was just a tremendous gift.

RICK HACKETT: Father Bragg, in fact, was a very dear friend of my grandmother.

He would come to my house many times and uh sit at the table.

I don't remember him, but my grandmother, great grandmother, would talk about Father Bragg.

V. JACKSON: He was a combination of a religious leader and an activist.

RICK HACKETT: He was just a man of the community.

He never drove, he didn't ride the bus.

Wherever he went in West Baltimore, he walked, even East Baltimore, wherever he went in the city, he walked and everyone knew him.

MASON: At that point, the community was pretty much the church community.

In other words, uh the migration patterns of Blacks in Baltimore City was such that the middle class lived within walking distance of the church.

They lived on Druid Hill Avenue, they lived on McCullough Street, they lived on Madison Avenue.

So those, many of the people who attended were people who lived in the community.

ANDERSON: They used to talk about the walkers, those who walked from the old church to this church.

And it wasn't too terribly long ago we honored those last walkers who may have walked as children, but were well into their 80s and some 90s.

And Cedric Mills came later, he followed him.

Again, I never met Cedric Mills, but he reminded me when people would talk about him, they reminded me of my priest at home.

V. JACKSON: He was the ultimate pastor.

You could almost ask anybody who grew up in that church about him today, and they would say he was the pastor personified.

WARREN HAYMAN: Father Mills was a dynamic person, really caring, but very disciplined.

If service started at eight and nobody was here, but he and the altar boys, we started.

That's how he operated.

CEPHAS: He had a very striking persona.

I mean, as a child, it was almost a fear factor.

[Laughs] When he came in the room, you got quiet, you stood up.

There was a reverence about him that was um very striking.

RICK HACKETT: He was the kind of person, he was no nonsense.

He ran that church.

He was one of the best priests that we ever had.

MASON: He had an excellent youth program, young adult program, did lots of exciting things, took a group of teens every year to New York on a pilgrimage.

WARREN HAYMAN: He was president of the PTA at Douglass High School.

He was involved in the NAACP.

MASON: And it wasn't just a religious pilgrimage, it was a cultural pilgrimage.

So we went to jazz clubs, we went to the theater.

WARREN HAYMAN: All of that has stuck with me for 92 years.

[Door Opening] HOWARD: Well this is the Guild Hall.

Um, growing up, we used to have dances here with the youth.

Um, in my- in my time in the fellowship, if you came to a St.

James party, it was held here, and this was the place to be in Baltimore.

I mean, if you came to a St.

James sponsored dance, this was a place.

RICK HACKETT: I remember the Friday night parties, which was- which made St.

James famous.

All the kids all over town wanted to come to the Friday night parties.

I could tell you a story, but I don't think I should.

Oh, boy, I shouldn't tell it.

Should I tell it?

V. JACKSON: Well, you know, the Baptists couldn't dance, and the Catholics, they could do whatever they wanted to, so long as they went to confession before midnight, you know, and got forgiven.

So, and and we were somewhere in the middle.

I mean, you heard this among kids, you know?

RICK HACKETT: I remember this one particular time.

Some of the guys, snuck some bottles of wine in their coat sleeves.

Walked up, some of the- some of the fellas, but it wasn't me.

But some of the fellas distracted the chaperones who were at the table, at the punch table.

They poured the wine into the punch bowl.

The ladies were at the table, keeping beat, watching, laughing, and they started drinking the punch.

WARREN HAYMAN: I recall when we had dances, Father Mills would always say to me, "Well, we need to invite some of your friends."

So that, and and female friends.

They were a little reluctant, but once they got into the mix, uh it was, just like that.

RICK HACKETT: All of a sudden, that beat got better and better, and they were on the dance floor more than the kids.

Maybe it was me.

CEPHAS: Then there was, you know, Father Wilson, and I guess that was my formative years as a, as a teenager, a member again of the youth fellowship and and acolytes.

HOWARD: Started as an...altar boy.

Actually, we started as what they call a boat boy.

We used to call the incense for the thurible, and then you had to work your way up to become an altar boy.

And we used to wear these black um, robes with like a white collar, and they had these big bows you used to have to wear with these hard collars.

It was horrible wearing it.

ANDERSON: And one thing about Father Wilson, he was very regal.

As I said, on Easter or Christmas Eve, he had an air about him.

When he would walk down the aisle, you couldn't help but feel like, "Oh, I must be in the presence of," you know, "I feel like I'm in the presence of kings and queens.

I feel like I'm in England, the Anglican Church of England."

But he just had such a presence about him.

CEPHAS: I remember we were getting ready to process in, and I was an acolyte, and this young, very young, he may have been six or seven years old.

He comes up to Father Wilson, he pulls on his vestment, and he says, "What do you all do in there?"

And Father Wilson said, "Take my hand and I'll show you."

And that young man never left.

He grew up in this church.

ANDERSON: And so when um Donald Wilson decided to retire, of course there was the search for a new rector.

[Gentle music] V. JACKSON: Father Curry, when he came, and he was young, Curry was only 35.

I was on the search committee that went to interview him in uh wherever, oh don't tell me, Cincinnati.

ANDERSON: So, one of the candidates was this man named Michael Curry, and he wore these red-rimmed glasses.

And I thought, "Well now, who is he?"

V. JACKSON: And as we've often laughed and said, "We had no idea what we were getting."

[Laughs] ANDERSON: And when he started preaching, I said, "Oh my, this is different."

JACKSON: Um, Curry was a completely unusual priest, um at least, you know, sort of in my mind, and... especially for the Episcopalian tradition.

REBECCA HACKETT: He didn't sound like the typical Episcopal priest.

[Laughs] I came from an AME background, African Methodist Episcopal background.

I felt like I was home.

[Laughs] HELEN ANDERSON: Don't get me wrong, I was very impressed, but I wasn't sure if the church was ready for him.

You know, I just wasn't sure.

And, he must've made an impression because he received the call to come to St.

James, and he answered that call.

And that was back in, I guess, 1988.

He came to St.

James.

RICK HACKETT: There were many members of the church that just did not like him.

They said, "Man, that's not the kind of church.

You're the wrong kind of priest for our church."

But as he, did his thing, he didn't, he didn't stop.

He didn't succumb.

He did his thing, and he won everyone over.

ANDERSON: That pulpit could not contain him.

CEPHAS: Bishop Curry gave a different type of sermon.

I mean, it was emotional, I mean, you felt it.

HELEN ANDERSON: The acolytes knew, move the pulpit to the center because he's not going to that pulpit.

He's gonna preach, because that was his... message.

Come to the people, bring your message to the people.

V. JACKSON: Michael was, while it was down to earth, simple terminology, he had a way of really drawing you into it.

ANDERSON: And then he would even move from behind the, that pulpit and step down the aisle a few more steps to make his point.

V. JACKSON: He- and he was great with the metaphors.

He was great with the, he could relate it to Shakespeare, to to hip hop, to whatever you wanted.

He he knew he could figure out how to do that.

ANDERSON: And... the people loved it.

The parishioners loved it.

It took a minute, because at first this was very different, but they embraced it so, and of course, I did too.

V. JACKSON: He was an extraordinary kind of a speaker, as the, the country knows.

RICK HACKETT: Father Curry, my opinion, woke St.

James up.

CEPHAS: My upringing- upbringing, you didn't say "amen" unless it was written.

There was no clapping of hands to the music.

So, under uh, Father, now Bishop Curry, we got to relax and your soul got to be a part of the service.

JACKSON: You know I wasn't the only person who was being energized or you know sort of invigorated in that um, uh we were um able to, in some ways, build the congregation or to bring people uh to our services who, you know, wouldn't have been inclined or wouldn't have even have felt welcomed before.

V. JACKSON: That did draw people.

People heard about this dynamic preacher.

And...because his style was so, evangelical, for lack of a better phrase, it attracted people who were not in the denomination.

REBECCA HACKETT: He seemed to walk the neighborhoods and from learning the history of Father Bragg, I could see a lot of Father Bragg in Bishop, now Bishop Curry.

V. JACKSON: He's the one that really began- began, to sort of try to move us more in the direction of incorporating the community.

RICK HACKETT: I remember once, members of the church wanted to buy him a brand-new Mercedes.

I'll never forget that.

And he was almost uh indignant.

He said, "A Mercedes?

Buy it if you want to, but I'll never even open the car.

I'll never get in there.

That's not what I'm about."

He rode around in a raggedy car, you know, wore the same shoes.

He was a man of God.

He wasn't about bling, bling.

He was a wonderful guy.

And he changed that church, changed it for the better.

ANDERSON: He could speak with, the person on the street that could be homeless in need of a handout.

Sometimes the people we might look down upon, he could carry on a conversation with them and he could talk to people in, we might say, high places.

I used to say, he can talk with kings and queens.

It does not matter.

And that's, what makes him such a special person.

RICK HACKETT: You could just feel God in him.

You could tell that he was a true man of the cloth, true man of God, and he touched so many, many people.

And he was incredible.

We've never had anyone like him.

JACKSON: You know, this was the first person that I'd, I'd ever seen in a pulpit who was saying, oh you know, there is- there was wisdom from uh, enslaved people.

And if you listen to the spirituals, you know, there is a deep um philosophical lesson there.

Um, there is a reflection on historical processes and there is um a refutation to the myth of Black inferiority.

And um, you know we have a great deal to be proud of from our heritage and our ancestry and then started incorporating those kinds of things into our services.

HOWARD: We sponsored two families to come from Eritrea in Africa.

And when Estafanos came, he brought this cross.

So, that Ethiopian cross now has become like a symbol of our church.

ESTAFANOS TEKIE: My name is Estefanos Tekie.

Uh, I'm from Asmara, Eritrea.

Our daughter, our son, been baptized by St.

James.

Been educated by St.

James.

The whole church, the whole place, they support us, they support our kids.

We don't have another home.

This is... our home.

[Voice breaks] They changed our life.

And when Father Curry asked me to bring this cross, I told him, "I will give my life to bring the cross."

I'm so proud, me and my family, to be Episcopalians, because they changed our life.

They showed us what Christian means.

JACOB HOWARD: On Father's Day, 1993, we had lightning strike the cross outside, bounce off the cross, and it hit the roof here.

And um, we almost lost the church.

MOST REV.

CURRY: That fire happened, I believe it was at 7:07 on a Sunday night.

NEWS REPORTER: A bolt of lightning strikes the rooftop of St.

James Episcopal Church, igniting a fire.

And moments later, it rages into an inferno.

Firefighters attack the blaze from all sides, but as the smoke turns black, crews pull back and reorganize.

ANDERSON: People began calling one another, "There's a fire at the church, there's a fire at the church."

And so, most of us jumped in our cars and came directly here.

MOST REV.

CURRY: Word started getting out um because it was like a slow news day, it was Sunday evening.

So, it got out on the news, on the crawl.

So, folk came out and then folk in the community started coming out.

MOST REV.

CURRY: As far as we know, all the damage is in the roof.

Damage from the fire is in the roof itself.

Um whatever damage there is in the sanctuary down below would be water and smoke.

ANDERSON: It's something to see your church on fire, the roof.

That's where our attention was on this beautiful high ceiling, on this roof, we saw the um, our church up in flames.

And there's just no words, you don't know what to say.

So, everybody was just patiently watching the firemen do do their work, not knowing, "What is this gonna mean to us?"

HOWARD: I remember standing next to Father Curry and the fire chief was saying, there's what is called a rose window, and if we don't break that out, we're gonna lose the church.

So, we broke that out, the fire got a source of oxygen and it literally stopped here in the middle of the church.

MOST REV.

CURRY: Sacrificing that one window saved that church building.

You know, there's a sermon there, but I'll leave that for another time.

CEPHAS: And if memory serves me correctly, we were probably within 30 minutes of losing the entire structure.

I mean, it was that close.

MOST REV.

CURRY: I'll never forget uh people in the community who were not necessarily members, um crying.

And and, it took me awhile to figure out what's going on.

What was that about, what was going on?

And even people who were members of the church, sure, got that connection, but why other people?

And part of me realized it was that in center city, Baltimore, at least then, I don't know what it's like now, the center of the city was being abandoned.

JACKSON: In Baltimore City and in the Harlem Park, Sandtown, Druid Hill Avenue neighborhood, 1993 is um you know, like very close to the epitome of the um, just extraordinary decline and um heartache for that section of the city, especially.

MOST REV.

CURRY: And the one thing that was remaining there were these churches.

Now, they- some of them were old buildings.

[Laughs] Like ours, these are old buildings, but doggone it, they stayed.

Later on, as the evening went on, this is like, 10:30.

Started about 7:30, 7:00 or 7:30.

By 10:30, um the news media was there.

And um, and you know, folk in the congregation, community, and everybody's still around.

And one of the reporters um, for one of, I don't know which TV station was, asked me, "Um is the church insured?"

I said, "Yeah, it's insured."

It's insured.

He said, "Will you rebuild here or will you move out to the suburbs?"

And there 'cause there's a lot of bod- there are people out there.

I mean, you could.

And it was probably the only time I made a public pronouncement like that, that I didn't consult with the vestry and wardens.

[Chuckles] It was on the spot, it was standing on the street corner.

I said, "This church is not leaving the city.

We're here to stay in the city."

MASON: The church had pretty much had to make a decision or the congregation had to make a decision as to whether or not it would remain in the city after that fire or not.

And it made a conscious decision to stay in the city.

JACKSON: I know that they must have been struggling right at that time with, you know, I mean, should we just you know, try to relocate to a place where it's easier, closer to the parishioners, especially in Baltimore County, easier to rebuild, um you know, make something, make a building that's you know, cost efficient um, and easy to run.

And uh, this is the sign or the time to do it.

ANDERSON: Yes, there were some parishioners who said, "Hey, this might be a sign from God.

It's time to move to another location."

Because the neighborhood had started to change then.

There were- there were major changes in the neighborhood... But Michael Curry's vision, remain.

REBECCA HACKETT: As Father Curry said [chuckles], we're needed in the city, we decided to stay in the city.

And even though we are not, some of us aren't living in the community, we didn't want to do the same thing that that Church of Ascension did, leave.

We decided to stay and to build.

JACKSON: That's the the thing that I am most proud of about the church, is the decision to remain.

And the decision um to understand our legacy as being connected to that part of the city.

MOST REV.

CURRY: You know, those two years that we were out, and just had to add services because the gu- we were in the guild hall, um which was not as big as the church, we just had to just add services.

ANDERSON: So, of course it was a little tight, but and you didn't have much wiggle room, but it was all good because that really made us come together in a way, maybe we had not come together before.

You were shoulder to shoulder with your parishioners.

RICK HACKETT: And because of the inconvenience of being in the guild hall and being close up, close together, it's like the ice broke.

And and the members of the church got so close together and became so loving.

It really became what church is supposed to be about.

And, that's the good thing out of the bad thing.

ANDERSON: There were no down spirits at the time.

We were hopeful.

And uh as long as we were able to engage in worship and hear from Michael Curry, we were...we were good, so to speak.

REBECCA HACKETT: We became a very intimate church when we met in the guild hall.

And for me, I made up my mind, that this is my church and I'll become a member.

And I did.

ANDERSON: God kind of finds a way.

He's he's good at that.

Finds a way to take something tragic that could have really ended this church to some extent and He turned it into something so good.

You know, so good.

Parishioners having worshipped so close together, I think felt closer to one another.

MOST REV.

CURRY: People will rally, um, and will rally when they realize there's something of value at stake here.

And it's not just history and legacy.

Um, it actually may have something to do with maintaining a community of hope for today and for the future that we can't see yet.

ANDERSON: When Michael Curry preached our first Sunday back in this beautiful space, we were having some of, some of the children, we had confirmation, so the Bishop was here because we were having confirmation.

And I guess because it was a special occasion, he started in the pulpit.

And everybody was like, you're not gonna stay there.

Of course he didn't.

He came right, jumped almost right out of that pulpit.

And one of his mess- his message that day was, stay in the city.

MOST REV.

CURRY: The night of the fire, I was standing over across the street.

And a little boy came up and he said, "Father, is the church going to leave?"

I realize now that out of the mouths of babes.

For the church is more than a building.

The church is even more than its people, as important as we are.

The church and our synagogues and mosques, God help us, any house of God is a sign of hope, sometimes in a hopeless land.

That that child was asking me, is hope leaving?

Is God leaving?

Let me answer that child this way.

When you go out the narthex, out the front door, if you um go to this side of the building, you'll see a window, a stained glass window there.

And some of the older members of this church will remember what I'm talking about.

Goes back to the days, I think of Father Mills, that that that after the Second World War, this church sent some money to help rebuild a church located in Pill, England.

And in thanks for the support of this church, they sent that stained glass.

The church in Pill, England had been destroyed by Hitler's Luftwaffe, but that stained glass survived Hitler.

That stained glass survives drugs on this street.

That stained glass survives crime.

That stained glass survives a civilization that may be crumbling.

So I wanna answer that little boy this day.

"Don't you worry, God has not abandoned his people.

The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of God endures forever."

[Congregation applauds] MOST REV.

CURRY: Stay.

Stay.

Stay, in the city.

ANDERSON: I do believe, God has called us to be here, that you must stay in the city because you can do something for those in this community who are in need.

[Street sounds] NICOLE JONES: There are several um initiatives under the outreach program.

We have the food pantry, where we provide food to the Harlem Park, Sandtown, Winchester communities.

We've also provided "Angel Tree," where we provide gifts during Christmas for those in the area or those who have been inc-, parents have been incarcerated.

We also have a health ministry, where we provide literature and uh seminars to our parishioners and outside community participants on different health initiatives.

So it- it's a well-rounded outreach program.

ANGIE CORNISH: Here and then can [unintelligible] here too.

[Speaking in background] ANGIE CORNISH: A lot of people in this area, uh before the pandemic, they were struggling.

And then during the pandemic, they struggled.

And some of them are still struggling.

And I see, the food pantry as trying to help them out, ease their struggles.

JENNIFER WARREN LOTT: We have applesauce, peaches... and oranges.

I think that with St.

James participating in the neighborhood, the main focus of um outreach and the love of the Lord and serving those as Jesus had done with the two fish and the five loaves of bread is really basically the main tenets of why we do outreach.

We want to encourage those who still remain in the community to feel free to come and worship.

But we have other duties within the community.

There's a reason why the Lord put us here.

There's a reason why we learn the lessons that He has um shown and given us.

And that we are to take those lessons, take those um teachings and go forth in His name and do wh- do what we can with His grace.

JACKSON: I think that we will ultimately see the revitalization of the um, that section of Baltimore.

And I'm- I'm- I'm delighted that I belong to a group of people that had the foresight to think about the future and uh the transformation that they could participate in and and what- what might become.

[Birds Chirping] PRIEST: The Holy Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, according to Luke.

CONGREGATION: Glory to you, Lord Christ.

[Congregation Singing Hymn] [Organ music] [Talking in background] CATHY MORELL: The music in this church is so historic.

You know, Maurice Murphy, from 1970 until 2000, 30 years, Maurice was here, had the senior choir.

He brought people in to sing.

Um, he had students who sang for him.

They um, they were at- a couple of them went to the Metropolitan Opera.

ROCHELLE GORDON: Yes they did.

MORELL: This church lives on music and and, we're just trying to keep it going.

[Choir Rehearsing] CYNTHIA EASLEY: We began as a gospel choir, which was very unique in the Episcopal church.

ROCHELLE GORDON: I grew up with music in my family.

I came from a Baptist church.

In fact, I was raised up in Macedonia right down the street.

And um, it was different for us because we came from that Baptist atmosphere.

So it, I have to be honest, it took me a minute, kind of getting used to the change.

And um so it was like, singing on the junior choir, that's when I learned more about the music of the Episcopal Church.

When Father Curry thought of the idea of having a gospel choir um, it just thrilled me because I was like, "Oh my God, we're going to sing gospel!"

[Laughs] [Choir Singing] EASLEY: We had had a choir from another church come and they sang gospel.

And afterwards he said um, "You know, we should have a gospel choir."

[Laughing] I remember saying to him, "Well who's go- great, who's gonna sing?"

You know?

[Choir Singing] EASLEY: We're small, but we know that our job is to be a part of the worship in this church.

MORELL: And to continue the music.

EASLEY: And to continue it.

So like, no big Rose Choir, no big gosp- no big um senior choir, no junior choir now.

Just us.

But it's his plan.

He has the plan, you know, and I know we're not giving up.

So whatever he's gonna get us to do, we'll just go!

[Laughs] ♪ We shall overcome ♪ ♪ We shall... ♪ ♪ We shall... ♪ ♪ We shall overcome ♪ ♪ We shall... ♪ ♪ We shall... ♪ ♪ We shall overcome ♪ ♪♪ [Congregation chatting] REV.

CHARLES MERCER: You know God, we serve a God who's, a very giving God, but He also takes once in a while and that's the part we're a little uncomfortable with.

As long as He gives, we're okay.

But when He takes, whether it's material or a person from us, that makes us real uneasy.

But somewhere along our journey, if you really sit down and are honest with yourself, I know I can do it for myself, God broke some rules so that I could get from this place to that place and be successful.

There were some things that I've done over the years I've never dreamt about doing.

I said, "No, I would never, never be accepted."

Um, but I knew it when I got there, it was only because, God had a- had a hand in it and changing some minds or or maybe opening up a door here or there that allowed me to to get there.

So because this place has been here for 200 years, I'm sure quite a few times over those years, God did something here that helped this parish to always keep their doors open and always keep their pews filled.

And that was only- that was the work of a lot of good women and men, but God had a hand in that.

And then somewhere in that process, He changed a rule or broke it, so that they could get what they needed here.

So, St.

James is very blessed.

Not too many churches can say they've been around for 200 years.

REV.

RICHARD MEADOWS: In the African community, it's always important to know where you come from, the history.

And the word would be through the Adinkra language, would be Sankofa.

So that as you progress forward, um you're not only remembering, but also building on that work.

And that's what's always important to African-American community, is building upon the shoulders, as they call it, standing upon the shoulders of others who have laid the foundation.

So, it's a very biblical concept with the building of the walls of Jerusalem.

There's this foundation that was laid.

And the scripture even says, "No other foundation than that which was laid by Christ Jesus."

So, this foundation has been laid.

And then each generation builds upon it, never forgetting that bottom rung or those soldier courses, never forgetting, but always remembering the sacrifices and the um, and what people have given.

And so, in order to move forward, um that's that's why it's so important for us to remember the prior 200 years to even begin to develop the next 200 years.

RUTH FAUNTLEROY: St.

James to me means... A spiritual connection with God and a spiritual connection and fellowship with my church family.

I do not have a family per se.

So I always consider St.

James as my family.

LUCY SWAIN: Um, I'm 82.

And I've been a member of St.

James all my life.

ELINOR LOUISE MURPHY: St.

James was the place to belong.

St.

James was the most popular church in the world.

And it was the place that the boys would come to meet the girls, as long as your mother and Father Mills didn't catch you talking.

HOWARD: If you look at those who have come from Father Bragg, and then you had Father Mills, and you look at the dozens of people we call the sons and the daughters of St.

James.

And I think when you look at that and what we've done to keep the Episcopal Church going here, and now with Bishop Curry on a national level, I think if you look at, if you wanna look at history and tradition, a lot of it is still here.

And hopefully that'll never go away um in the future.

At least I hope it doesn't.

ANDERSON: Yes, I stick out my chest.

I'm proud to say, yes, the historic St.

James Episcopal Church, the oldest church below the Mason Dixon line, three- third oldest Black established Episcopal Church.

Yes, I stick my chest out with great pride in being able to say that.

EASLEY: I love the appearance of it.

I love the smell of it.

I love the feel- warm, warm feeling that I get when I come.

And I love the family.

V. JACKSON: My religious experience in life has been centered at that place.

NICOLE JONES: We are a close-knit congregation.

We know each other.

We know when there are things that um our congregation may need.

We step in, fill the gap whenever we need to.

We're, we're a family.

RICK HACKETT: It's no accident that St.

James has been St.

James for going on 200 years, and St.

James will always be there.

St.

James will, be there five more generations for my family, and we'll be there with it.

ANDERSON: This may sound a little strange, but when you step on the corner of Lafayette and Arlington, you're stepping on some sacred ground right here, because I think about the history, even though William Levington didn't start the church on this corner, it's the church.

It's not the building, it's the church.

That you're stepping on sacred ground, and don't ever forget it.

MOST REV.

CURRY: The Christian movement, such as it is today, has its origin in Jesus and a few people, who dared to walk with Him and listen to Him and live like Him.

It was just a couple of them, and they changed the world.

And what happened then can happen again.

And that's my hope for St.

James.

A church that I dearly love, and a church that has a future.

[Gentle music plays]