Anti-Racism

Sacred Ground: A small-group discussion series on race, grounded in faith.

Recent Events at St. Columba’s

Background Reading and Watching

St. Columba’s Episcopal Church is today among the largest and wealthiest parishes in the Diocese of Washington. Located in the Tenleytown neighborhood of Northwest Washington, D.C., the church property includes the stone chapel and spacious gathering areas known as the Commons and the Great Hall. A large wing houses church offices, a music room, lounge, library, several meeting rooms, and a bustling nursery school. The grounds include a playground and outdoor gathering space, a Columbarium, various garden areas, and a parking lot. For 2021, the parish budget exceeded $3 million. The church is completing a $2.4 million renovation.

The church is served by three regular clergy, a priest assistant, a deacon, a director of operations, two musicians on staff, and more than a dozen additional staff members. Like its surrounding neighborhood, St. Columba’s parishioners, clergy, and staff, with notable exceptions, have been predominantly White.

But St. Columba’s has not always been prosperous, and the surrounding Tenleytown community has not always been so predominantly White. St. Columba’s parish has shaped, and been shaped by, the story of Tenleytown — the neighborhood occupying the highest point overlooking Washington. Its long history includes the Native American tribes who thrived there for centuries, the English settlers who brought slavery and the Anglican church to the area, plantations worked by enslaved persons, Civil War forts, homes and churches built by the formerly enslaved, and Jim Crow segregation.

Understanding how St. Columba’s grew from a small mission chapel established by St. Alban’s parish in 1874 calls for an examination of the lasting effects of deliberate and systemic racist policies and practices in the United States since the 1700’s, specifically including in Washington, D.C., Tenleytown, and the Episcopal church. This paper endeavors to gather facts that will help the parish and the Diocese of Washington understand how racism has shaped St. Columba’s since its founding. In doing so, it examines the history of the land the parish occupies, the people who founded the church, and the church’s relationship with the African American community that once thrived within the parish boundaries, including its own mission chapel, St. George’s.

Finally, this paper is not the last word but a starting point: parishioners are invited to add their recollections of the church’s racial past and their hopes for the future.

To Read the full history, click below:

Exploring Reparations

Undesign the Redline

Washington Interfaith Network

Bethesda African Cemetery Coalition (BACC)

• Stirring the Waters: A Ministry for racial justice that seeks to educate the parish and ourselves on the impact of racism and racial inequity, to confront white privilege, to promote interracial dialogue and to act against racial injustice.
• Anti-Racism Task Force: In early 2021, the Vestry and rector of St. Columba’s convened the Anti-Racism Task Force and charged it with guiding the parish in a commitment to becoming antiracist into every facet of congregational life
• Washington Interfaith Network: St. Columba’s is a participant in WIN, an organization committed to training and developing neighborhood leaders, addressing community issues, and holding elected and corporate officials accountable in Washington, DC.

Since then, the Task Force has been on a journey of faith, learning, and discernment. We have sought the input of the entire parish through listening sessions, a parish-wide survey, Sunday forum events, and individual conversations. We have engaged with the diocese on diocese-wide and church-wide justice and equity issues. And we have engaged with the church and church leaders to begin a journey of repentance and repair for St. Columba’s history with respect to race.

Through all of this, we have worked to live up to the charge given to us: to provide leadership and guidance as St. Columba’s begins to honor our commitment to antiracism.

The St. Columba’s Anti-Racism Task Force has developed a Strategy for Anti-Racism that provides guidance and structure for our work together. Endorsed by the Vestry and clergy of St. Columba’s, this plan lays the groundwork for all of us – as individuals, as parishioners, and as members of the community – to participate in this work.

We believe that we are called to renounce and resist racism in all aspects of our life and to actively work toward the Beloved Community. We commit ourselves to anti-racism as individuals, as a church, and as members of our community. Through this work, we will:

• Integrate antiracism into faith development for all ages and into St. Columba’s programs and ministries;
• Deeply commit and engage across the entire parish in dismantling racism in our community, in our homes, and in our church;
• Be better equipped to identify and have conversations about issues of racism;
• Welcome and embrace all people and build longer-term partnerships in the broader community;
• Make a difference in the lives of others, and
• Continually invite one another into this work and commit to hold ourselves accountable to live our values and reflect the Beloved Community.

We invite you to join in this journey with the Task Force and the church’s other ministries related to this critical work.