Years before Kenneth S. Anderson moved to Richmond in 2013 for college, he heard glowing stories of St. Philip’s Episcopal Church and his family roots there. Founded by enslaved people and free people of color in 1861, St. Philip’s is the oldest Episcopal church founded by African Americans in the American South.
In Richmond, Anderson made his own deep dive into the church to produce Footprints in Faith: A History of St. Philip’s Episcopal Church, Richmond, Virginia, 1861-2021. Published earlier this year, his 362-page book traces the parish and its members through slavery, emancipation, Jim Crow, civil rights, and the pandemic.
As the nation and diocese observes Juneteenth—and St. Philip’s co-hosts a Day of Freedom Celebration with St. Peter’s and St. John’s Episcopal Churches—Anderson’s research and writing bears witness to generations of African Americans in Richmond who for 160 years created and sustained a parish that serves as a center of faith, education, and civic progress.
Q: What was your personal connection to Richmond?
A: My maternal grandmother, Jean Scott, had told stories for years of Richmond. She gave this wonderful, romantic view of a Southern city back in the day. Segregation was present, but it wasn’t the main focus, because the Black community was so strong. Her father, Robert H. Scott, Sr. (1918-2003), was the son of George W. Scott, Sr. (1870-1947) and Lucy Braxton Scott (1876-1963)—my great-great-grandparents. They joined St. Philip’s in 1919, and all eight of their kids were christened and confirmed in the church.
The earliest member of my family who attended St. Philip’s joined in 1896. George Evans was his name.
I went to University of Richmond, and my sophomore year I went to St. Philip’s for Easter Mass and really liked the parish. I attended on and off for about a year and then started going regularly. Richmond is a city where you really do have to know people, and St. Philip’s took me in as one of their own. On a few occasions, I was blessed to chat with older members who remembered my relatives—some whom I never met. Those were special moments. When I started researching the history of my own family during college, I realized that St. Philip’s played such a big role in our story. It’s a shame that my great-grandfather died in 2003 when I was eight, because there were so many questions that I had.
Q: Why a book?
A: I wanted to share the stories and show the triumphs of people who never got the chance or the exposure to have their biographies written. It’s not just a biography of St. Philip’s, but of its members and all these people who should have had biographies, but never got biographies because of racism.
Q: What was the origin of St. Philip’s and relationship with the diocese?
A: In the late 1850s, the Diocese of Virginia started to consider developing mission work toward the people they called ‘servants’—I’d call them enslaved—basically creating space for Black people in the diocese. St Philip’s first members were both enslaved and also some free people from Richmond’s tight-knit communities of free people of color. St. Philip’s did not receive full diocesan representation at convention until 1937. If you look at any random church that was founded in the diocese in the late 19th or early 20th century, within two years, they’d be fully recognized as a full parish—but not St. Philip’s. I would describe, until very recently, say the last 50 years, our relationship with the Diocese of Virginia as sort of a genteel pet project of the Diocese.
Q: How did the church function during the Civil War?
A: There was sporadic attendance. And in 1863 and 1864, the bishop doesn’t even mention the church in his report, because literally the diocese is running from Alexandria and going south and making sure that the Union Army didn’t capture them. Then, at the very end of the war, there was an increase in people interested in St. Philip’s because of a school connected to St. Philip’s. From the 1860s to the end of the 19th century, St. Philip’s Sunday school specifically boomed as schoolchildren were learning how to read and write and learning arithmetic.
Q: What racial challenges did the church face historically?
A: During Jim Crow, the ‘Virginia Way’ ruled in Richmond. It was this “polite” form of racism. You rarely saw any lynchings or Klan activity in Virginia. But there was this understanding that white people would be cordial if Black people stayed in their place. St. Philip’s members and the parish as a whole walked the tightrope of trying to advance while still having to conform to the system to stay alive and safe.
Q: How did St. Philip’s build community during segregation?
A: Members who lived through that time described the community as tight-knit. There was lots of talk of food and how good it was. If you think about it, these moments to gather around the table spared St. Philip’s members from the indignity of segregated restaurants. They also had programming available like a cotillion and dances for kids. And there was a connection to sort of all the other Black social organizations like the fraternities and sororities of the Divine Nine, the Boule, the Girlfriends, the Links, Jack and Jill—you name it. Within St. Philip’s, members could be referred to as Mr. or Mrs. at church, and Black folks didn’t necessarily get that kind of treatment, especially from whites, outside of church.
Unfortunately, even within the all-Black community of St. Philip’s, there was colorism in the parish. If you look at the two senior wardens who served from the 1920s to the 1970s, one of the men definitely could have passed for white. Often, St. Philip’s members weren’t necessarily educated, but they were light-skinned, so they were able to enjoy a better quality of life than darker-skinned Black Richmonders. Today’s membership still talks of how the parish has always attracted professionals, ‘Oh yes, we’ve always been the church of Richmond’s Black doctors and lawyers and accountants.’ But there were some artisans and small businesspeople back in the day, school teachers, and the parish roll had its fair share of domestic workers and day laborers.
Q: How did the church approach civil rights?
A: Some members, though they hated segregation, would say, ‘Let’s not rock the boat.’ My grandmother’s grandmother was no exception. One time, in the 1950s, she was referred to by her first name by a younger white man in a store. My grandmother corrected the store clerk and told him to refer to her grandmother as ‘Mrs. Scott,’ but her grandmother said to her, ‘Jeannie, don’t make trouble.’
One member who was a teenager during the civil rights movement said to me, “We didn’t hear too much talk about civil rights while we were in church [but] knew that certain members of the parish were breaking barriers outside of St. Philip’s.” When you read the vestry minutes from those years, it was great to see that the parish gave $300 to this minister that was arrested in Alabama for protesting.
There were people in the parish doing huge work, but it was not discussed on a Sunday to Sunday basis, probably for security reasons. As an attorney myself, I’m proud to have a connection through St. Philip’s to Spottswood William Robinson III, one of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund lawyers in Brown v. Board of Education. Robinson also was the first African American on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Q: What was your most surprising discovery during research?
A: It was interesting seeing our transition to having our first woman rector, Mother (now Bishop) Phoebe Roaf. She told me a story about a parish member who referred to her as ‘Father Phoebe’ multiple times because he didn’t know what to call her.
There was also a rector at the turn of the 20th century who kept a list of all of his parishioners whom he didn’t like. He wrote down, almost like vestry minutes, that “Mrs. So and So is fat and ugly.” He was asked to leave because somebody found the book.
Q: How many members does St. Philip’s have today? What makes it special today?
A: There are probably 150 to 200 active members. The total membership is probably in the 300 to 400 range.I think there’s a heightened respect for tradition, while also being adaptable… We jumped online and did services through the pandemic, and people adjusted to that. The fact that there are not that many Black Episcopalians, I think that means that St. Philip’s will always exist, because there will be Black Episcopalians moving to Richmond, and if they want a majority Black church, that’s St. Philip’s.