Gloucester church added to Virginia Landmarks Register

GLOUCESTER, Va. (WAVY) – The Commonwealth’s Board of Historic Resources added eight historical sites on the Virginia Landmarks Register, including a Baptist church in Gloucester.

Union Zion Baptist Church is one of the earliest churches founded and built by emancipated African Americans in the county following the end of the Civil War, according to a release.

Established in 1867, a small group of congregants from Zion Poplars Baptist Church formed the church. Union Zion Baptist Church was part of a larger movement in the South during the mid- to late-19th century in which congregations within Black communities grew independently from White churches and cultivated their own spaces for worship and gathering.

Among Union Zion Baptist Church, the Board of Historic Resources also approved three schools that were beneficiaries of the Rosenwald Fund, a historic district where three Civil War battles took place, a local bakery that expanded into a large business in the Southeastern United States, and a program established in 1917 by businessman Julius Rosenwald and Tuskegee Institute founder Booker T. Washington to improve educational opportunities for African Americans in the South.

The Board validated the eight properties during a quarterly public meeting on Sept. 19 in Bath County.

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