Douglas Morgan and Emory Tolbert wrote this article, published in the February 2007 Columbia Union Visitor.
When Adventism took root in Washington, D.C., in the late 1800s, the capital city had the largest concentration of blacks of any American city. Howard University, outstanding public high schools, and federal government jobs made Washington a place of opportunity and high achievement for black Americans.
The first sizable group of black Adventist believers, in what would become Columbia Union territory, worked and worshiped in full fellowship with white believers in the Seventh-day Adventist Church of Washington, D.C.
This week, Dawn Thompson started working at the Columbia Union Conference headquarters in Columbia, Md.
