![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRyrLSIDith9oYndCQ__gCOvG-7KxOocKTINCtAQgheT-TJxjfnm40ZDJPB7vxFBNpSqQM6Zz-ofpU7qrg9x6WQkzKDOEZRyWHT47JxLAXIoN9Uve8oAcXuA6CQM4afr8h0dXiKPqJ8kZY/s200/000005566666.jpg)
The Rev. John C. Harper had been rector at the historic St. John's Episcopal Church for less than a year when the 1963 March on Washington began taking shape. A lay leader in the congregation urged him to steer clear of it -- but instead he embraced it.
Harper held a service the morning of the march, welcoming a diverse crowd of more than 700 people at the church across from the White House. Black Episcopal choir members sang alongside the St. John's choir, and the service ended with worshippers holding hands to sing the iconic civil rights movement song "We Shall Overcome."
"The church has too long been silent on this important issue," Harper wrote to church members that month. "Now at long last Christians like ourselves are aroused by the injustice of discrimination in any form and by any kind of segregation on the basis of a man's color."
More here-
https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2020/jul/13/washingtons-church-of-presidents-etched-in/