Metropolitan Baptist Church (Washington, D.C.)

The Metropolitan Baptist Church is a Baptist church in Largo, MD. The address of the church is 1200 Mercantile Lane in Largo, Maryland.

Reverend Henry Bailey, with ten original members, founded the Fourth Baptist Church in 1864. According to John Wesley Cromwell, the Fourth Baptist Church of Washington D.C., later renamed the Metropolitan Baptist Church, was organized under the guidance of the First Colored Baptist Church of Washington, D.C. which was later renamed the Nineteenth Street Baptist Church.[1] The Metropolitan Baptist Church was located across the street from Camp Barker, which housed a Quaker-run Civil War "contraband" barracks in the Shaw community of Washington, D.C. (then called "Hell's Bottom). It was here, within "Hell's Bottom, that Reverend Bailey and the founders of the Metropolitan Baptist Church began to minister to some 4,000 newly freed slaves.

Metropolitan holds the distinction of having had only six pastors in its history since 1864: Reverend Henry Bailey (1864–1870); Reverend Robert Johnson (1870–1903); Reverend Moses W. D. Norman, D.D., LL.D (1905–1926); Reverend Dr. Earnest Clarence Smith (1928–1977); Reverend Dr. H. Beecher Hicks, Jr. (1977–2014) and Reverend Dr. Maurice Watson (2015 - present).

Metropolitan's pastor-emeritus, Dr. H. Beecher Hicks, Jr., was named one of America's greatest black preachers by Ebony magazine in 1993.[2] The church also has a music and arts ministry that is staffed with Richard Smallwood, artist-in-residence.

Dr. Maurice Watson was installed as the sixth pastor of Metropolitan Baptist Church on April 12, 2015. Dr. Watson also has a dynamic itinerant preaching ministry that extends across the continent and globe.

References
  1. Cromwell, John W. (1922). "The First Negro Churches in the District of Columbia". The Journal of Negro History. Lancaster, PA: The New Era Printing Company. pp. 64–106. Retrieved November 30, 2016 – via Documenting the American South.
  2. "The 15 Greatest Black Preachers". Ebony. November 1993. Retrieved November 30, 2016 – via Black Preaching Network.

Further reading


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