The First Baptist Church of Farmville is a historic landmark only a pebble’s throw away from Longwood University.
The First Baptist Church recently became a new addition to the Virginia Landmarks Register, a list of historic properties in the state of Virginia.
According to the National Register of Historic Places Registration Form, the First Baptist Church was eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places with an abundance of significant areas.
The areas include Education, Ethnic Heritage: African American, Law, Politics/Government, Religion and Social History.
The First Baptist Church was originally constructed around 1855 and then rebuilt around 1895. It is a humble example of late 19th and 20th century Gothic revival. The church is a rectangular shape, one- story, front-gabled building with five-bay elevations and wooden doors and a hipped roof extension. Moreover, each window has a multitude of tiny colored glass panes that emit rays of light into the church.
During the American Civil War, the First Baptist Church was originally a hospital for confederate troops. In 1867, the building was sold to William D. Evans, Ottaway Lip- scomb, James Scott, William Ward and Caesar White, who were Baptist church trustees.
During the African American Civil Rights Movement, the First Baptist Church emerged as a center for the local African American community under the leadership of Reverend L. Francis Griffin whose goal was to desegregate Prince Edward County's public schools during the 1950s and 1960s.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) envisioned a possible role in Prince Edward County, and King visited Prince Edward County and the First Baptist Church in March 1962.
According to the National Register of Historic Places Registration Form, the historical significance of the First Baptist Church is the direct association between Pastorate of Reverend L. Francis Griffin and Robert Russa Moton High School strike on April 23, 1951.
In April 1951, 16-year-old Barbara Johns at Robert Russa Moton High School in Farmville, Virginia, orchestrated a two-week student strike to protest the inadequate and overcrowded facilities at the school.
Furthermore, on May 17, 1954, the Moton suit was one of the five cases included into the Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, which outlawed school segregation.
After this, Prince Edward County closed their public schools from Sept. 10, 1959 until 1964 in protest of integration during the Massive Resistance of Virginia. This led Reverend Francis Griffin to establish a privately funded and administered Free School Association. This program opened on Sept. 16, 1963 and gracefully provided one year of education for most African American students.
In 1964, Griffin successfully convinced and led ef- forts for children, parents and community members to desegregate the Prince Edward County Schools in the Supreme Court lawsuit, Griffin v. Country School Board.
O May 25, 1964, Supreme Court decision in Griffin v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, which ordered that all Prince Edward County school children receive equal public school education, did Prince Edward County open inte- grated public schools for all students on Sept. 8, 1964.
James P. Ashton is the current Pastor at the First Baptist Church and has been so for over 20 years. An article published in February 2009 by Hampden-Sydney College titled, “Closing Doors, Opening Doors,” stated, “James Ashton, during his tenure as Pastor of First Baptist, has given of himself to numerous causes and events intended to achieve reconciliation and healing among the citizens of the county whose lives were impacted by the school closings.”
The same article claimed, “As a retired educator who worked for the state department of education in Virginia for a number of years, Rever end Ashton continues to be concerned about the plight of Africa American children and the children of other under privileged groups in the educational system.”
First Baptist Church began as, and always will be, an emblem of community and cultural preservation to the town of Farmville and now to the state Virginia.
First Baptist Church is locat- ed in Downtown Farmville at the southeast corner of South Main Street and 4th Street.
