First Baptist Church, Bute Street

Norfolk's first Baptist congregation was established around 1800 as an interracial body of whites, free blacks, and slaves. Most of the white congregation split off in 1817, and the remaining, primarily black, congregation moved in 1830 to an old salt-storage warehouse on Bute Street that came to be known as "the old salt box." The present church building, dating to 1906, stands on the site of that structure, and the scale and strength of its architecture symbolize the church's leadership role in the community. During the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s, First Baptist initiated programs to help prepare citizens for upcoming social and legislative changes. In September 1958, when Virginia Governor J. Lindsay Almond, Jr. closed Norfolk's all-white junior and senior high schools rather than admit 17 black students who had been assigned there, the church began a tutoring program for "The Norfolk 17" so their education would not be interrupted and to prepare them to handle any racial resistance they might encounter when the schools reopened. After a legal fight, Norfolk's six closed public schools reopened on a desegregated basis on 2 February 1959, marking the end of Massive Resistance in Norfolk.

Norfolk, Virginia · United States