Established as the First Colored Baptist Church of Washington, D.C. on August 29, 1839, the congregation finds its earliest beginings within The First Baptist Church of the City of Washington, DC which was founded on March 7, 1802 [REF].
Sampson White, who had begun to organize a smaller group of black worshipers not from the First Baptist Church, secured recognition from leading white and black Baptists of Baltimore to establish a church.