Calloway Church

The Calloway United Methodist Church has been part of the Langston Boulevard community for over 150 years and is one of the oldest historically African American churches in Arlington.  Calloway Church continues to serve the Hall’s Hill (High View Park) community where it was founded, and its members have long provided a strong presence and voice to our larger Langston Boulevard community.

Calloway United Methodist Church in October 2024 (courtesy of Cindy Kane Photography).

History

The Calloway United Methodist Church was started in 1866 when several people met at the home of Mr. Samuel Smith on what was then Saegmuller Farm. In post-Civil War America, few formalized places of worship were available to Black parishioners. In 1870, these first church members purchased a small lot and built their first church at the 4800 block of Langston Boulevard, with Mr. C.W. Walker becoming the church’s first minister the following year. Composed mainly of people from the surrounding Hall’s Hill neighborhood, the congregation flourished, and a larger church was needed within the decade. [ARL County: Designation]

Calloway Church that stood from 1904 to 1979 (courtesy of Saundra Green).

In 1888, Mr. Moses Jackson, a church trustee, donated a half-acre of land at 5000 Langston Boulevard for the church's growth. A new church building was completed in 1904. It was soon followed by a parsonage and cemetery on the same property. [ARL County: Designation] Though originally called the Methodist Episcopal Church, the church would be named after one of its early pastors, Winsted Calloway, who served the community from 1878 to 1880. [ARL County: Calloway]

The ribbon-cutting ceremony for the opening of the new church in 1979 (courtesy of Saundra Green).

In the early 1950s, the property was expanded to include an additional half acre. A new parsonage replaced the original in 1964, and in 1979, the original church was renovated and expanded into the church you see today. Besides the addition of an open bell tower and a new front vestibule, the church was remodeled to include classrooms and meeting spaces for Sunday school and community events. [ARL County: Designation]

More Than a Church

Like Fire Station No. 8, Calloway United Methodist Church was an important institution to the broader community. Since services and spaces were limited for most African Americans in a segregated Virginia, the classrooms and meeting rooms of the church became community hubs. The church hosted many community groups and organizations over the years, and youth recreation and entertainment programs were held there since they were not available to Black children in the rest of Arlington. Church historian Saundra Green remembers the church being a social hub for the entire community, not just the congregation. In her youth she remembers attending many social events, movie nights, and youth dances hosted for all the kids in the neighborhood. [LBA: Green] The church even served as the auditorium for the John M. Langston School by hosting its school plays and graduations. [ARL County: Designation]

Pictures from the Calloway United Methodist Church Vacation Bible School program for neighborhood kids in 1958 (courtesy of Sandra Green).

Like many African American churches, Calloway United Methodist Church was heavily involved in the fight for social justice and change. It was the meeting place in the Hall’s Hill community’s struggle for civil rights and integration. During the desegregation of Arlington schools in the late 1950s, Calloway held several meetings to help plan the integration of the local schools. Saundra Green remembers that when she was a child, one of those meetings was interrupted when the American Nazi Party marched up the aisle and sat in on the meeting to intimidate the crowd. She proudly remembers hearing that this did not work as the meeting continued despite their interruption and presence. [LBA: Green] As school integration moved forward, Calloway offered information and aid to local Black students preparing to face the struggles of entering White-dominated schools. [ARL County: Designation]

Calloway United Methodist Church was also directly engaged in the Civil Rights Movement. Calloway members actively participated in the peaceful Arlington sit-ins that successfully desegregated local lunch counters, theaters, and hospitals. [Sullivan] In 1963, it hosted and provided meals for protesters attending the March on Washington. This event brought 250,000 people to the Lincoln Memorial to emphasize the ongoing inequalities African Americans faced 100 years after emancipation. It was made famous by the Rev. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. Calloway repeated this effort when the Rev. Martin Luther King returned for the Resurrection City campaign in 1968, raising awareness of poverty in African American communities and demanding economic justice. [ARL County: Designation]

The Historic Cemetery

The Calloway Cemetery is one of the oldest cemeteries associated with African American churches in Arlington. It provides an essential tie to local African American heritage that has often been lost or neglected. As the Rev. Sonja Oliver put it in 2012, “The cemetery is extremely significant in the lives of people because it fills a void. It’s a missing piece to so many people’s lives – that sense of heritage and pride…This is not just about the past; it’s the future. A legacy is only as good as a lifespan.” [Oliver]

Gravestones found in the historic Calloway United Methodist Church Cemetery in October 2024 (courtesy of Cindy Kane Photography).

It is estimated that around 100 people are buried in the cemetery on the west lawn of Calloway United Methodist Church. The earliest known burial took place in 1851, laying to rest Ms. Margaret Hyson, who had formerly been enslaved before becoming one of the early organizers of the church [LBA: Green]. The last known burial in the cemetery took place in 1959. [ARL County: Designation] Unfortunately, very few burial records exist at the church, and many grave sites have been lost or were never marked. Arlington County notes that this is somewhat typical of historic African American cemeteries as they “often had little or no formal landscaping, and at times, ornamental plants or vegetation were used to mark grave locations…wooden coffins were typical, often marked by simple wood or stone monuments that were made by hand…or marked only by fieldstones placed on end.” [ARL County: Calloway]

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, VDOT began widening what was then Lee Highway in front of the church, annexing a portion of the cemetery's north end. While early plans mention only six to eight graves being impacted, it was later noted to be more like 10. In 1959, The Circuit Court of Arlington issued a condemnation decree to the Commonwealth of Virginia, which allowed the annexation but required them to pay fair compensation for the land, make all attempts to identify those buried there, and reinter them in a suitable nearby cemetery. [ARL County: Calloway] None of the graves were marked, and at the time, neither parishioners nor government agencies could identify the interred. [ARL County: Calloway] Not knowing who they were did little to lessen the impact the annexation had on the congregation or the local community, who had long faced discrimination and neglect. In the end, the church trustees were paid a lump sum of $5,819 for the land, and the graves were moved to nearby Coleman cemetery. [ARL County: Calloway] Unfortunately, no records or grave locations were found when the County tried to research the whereabouts of those reinterments in 2012. It is believed they may have been reburied in an unmarked mass grave. [ARL County: Designation]

Fearing additional loss to the cemetery through increased development along the corridor, the congregation recently worked with Arlington County to protect their historic cemetery. The Calloway Cemetery was the first African American cemetery officially studied and documented by Arlington County. In 2012, it became the first African American cemetery to be designated in its entirety as an Arlington Historic District (a portion of the Lomax African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church cemetery was designated prior).