ABSTRACT
Proceeding west from Chatham Street, now Park Row, the angry, sweating mob of some 300 white men turned onto Centre Street, unlatched the iron gate in front of St. Philip’s Church, then crashed through the heavy oak main door. It also seems unlikely that the men of the mob that attacked the Church knew that Williams had from an early age thrown himself into the fight for racial justice on all the important fronts—opposition to slavery, promotion of education, employment, voting rights, and improved quality of life in New York’s black community. Undoubtedly, what triggered the mob’s rage was the widespread rumor, later proven untrue, that the Rev. Peter Williams, Jr., had recently in St. Philip’s Church married a black man to a white woman. The trouble that culminated in the July 11th attack on St. Philip’s had actually begun several days earlier, on July 4th, in connection with an abolitionist ceremony at the Chatham Street Chapel.
