Ambassadors of Faith

Ambassadors of Faith. Roads to Diversity. Three dramatic religious structures dominate this corner. They are among some 40 religious institutions lining 16th Street between the White House and the Maryland state line. . . Many serve as unofficial “embassies” representing the interests of their faiths before the U.S. Government. The neo-Baroque National Baptist Church, to your right, is a memorial to Roger Williams, founder of Rhode Island and champion of religious liberty. Its congregation has long worked for social justice and community betterment. The Carlos Rosario Public Charter School (1970) and the Academy of Hope (1980), both schools for immigrant and low-income populations, have met here. . . The Peace King Center of the Unification Church, to your left, home to the followers of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon since 1977, was originally the Washington Chapel, Church of Latter-Day Saints. Completed in 1933 with some 16,000 blocks of marble brought from Utah, it drew from the modern style of the Morman Tabernacle in Salt Lake City. The church moved to Kensington, Maryland in the 1970s. . . All Souls Church dates from 1877, and its current neo-Georgian building dates from 1924. Among its many famous congregants were President William Howard Taft and Senator Adlai Stevenson. In March 1965 its pastor, Rev. James Reeb, demonstrated the church’s commitment to social justice by joining a voting rights march in Selma, Alabama. There he was murdered by White opponents. Reeb’s death contributed to the national outcry against racism that helped pass President Lyndon Johnson’s Voting Rights Act just a few days later.