Robert W. Lee

“This particular church has something of a fascinating history. According to a booklet published in 1961 to celebrate its history, the church traces its roots to 1811, and was the first Methodist church in the state capital. The following year, it had seventy-six members, more than half of whom were black—this at a time when slavery was still alive and well in North Carolina. In the 1850s, white worshippers who attended the church decided African American slaves needed their own place of worship, and that’s how the church down the road, St. Paul’s, came to be. Then in the 1860s, this church’s pastor took leave to serve in the Confederate army, with the support of his flock.”
― Robert W. Lee, A Sin by Any Other Name: Reckoning with Racism and the Heritage of the South