SXNDXY Service at Abyssinian, 2022

In 1808, several Ethiopian traders searching for a place to worship, found themselves at the First Baptist Church in New York City only to then be segregated and ushered to the slave loft of the Church. This discriminative practice was met with resistance in the form of protests by the Ethiopian traders and other Black members of the First Baptist Church, who went on to form the Abyssinian Baptist Church in 1809. Since then, the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem has become an institution rooted in advocacy, social justice and political activism, particularly under reverends Adam Clayton Powell JR and DeWitt Proctor.