Reverend Doctor Wallace Charles Smith Day Recognition Resolution of 2025

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A CEREMONIAL RESOLUTION

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IN THE COUNCIL OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

March 4, 2025

To recognize, honor, and celebrate the Reverend Doctor Wallace Charles Smith for his 33 years
of dedicated service and leadership as the Senior Minister of Shiloh Baptist Church, and
to declare February 8, 2025, as "Reverend Doctor Wallace Charles Smith Day" in the
District of Columbia.

WHEREAS, the Reverend Doctor Wallace Charles Smith was installed as the sixth
pastor of Shiloh Baptist Church in July 1991;

WHEREAS, Reverend Doctor Smith has led one of Washington, DC’s oldest and most
influential African American Baptist churches for over three decades;

WHEREAS, in 1862, a group of enslaved and free African Americans in Fredericksburg,
Virginia, accepted the Army of the Potomac’s offer to provide transportation out of the
Confederacy and was relocated to the District of Columbia;

WHEREAS, in 1863, 21 of those freedmen organized and established a new Shiloh
Baptist Church and named it after their former Shiloh Church in Fredericksburg;

Whereas, in 1920, after the mortgage was paid off on Shiloh’s first sanctuary on L Street,
N.W., the former Hamline Methodist Episcopal Church building at Ninth and P Streets, N.W.,
was purchased as Shiloh’s new home, where the congregation continues to worship over 100
years later;

WHEREAS, a native of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Reverend Doctor Smith graduated
from Villanova University in 1970;

WHEREAS, he received the Master of Divinity degree (1974) and the Doctor of Ministry
degree (1979) from the Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Philadelphia;

WHEREAS, in 2005, Reverend Doctor Smith was appointed the first African American
President of the Palmer Theological Seminary (formerly Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary);

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WHEREAS, following this appointment, he served as the Dean of the Wallace Charles
Smith School of Practical Ministries, a school named in his honor, where he retired in 2010;

WHEREAS, under Reverend Doctor Smith’s leadership, Shiloh Baptist Church embraced
technology, using the Internet to allow worshippers to remotely participate in weekly services,
programs, and Bible Study;

WHEREAS, Reverend Doctor Smith greatly enhanced the role of women in leadership
positions by ordaining the first women ministers and deacons in Shiloh’s history;

WHEREAS, among his many community responsibilities, Reverend Doctor Smith is a
member of the 1994 Class of Leadership Washington, a board member of the InterFaith Council
of Metropolitan Washington, the Mayor’s Interfaith Council, and serves as President of the
Clergy for Community Wealth and Preservation;

WHEREAS, following 33 years of faithful leadership and devoted service, Reverend
Doctor Smith retired as Senior Minister of Shiloh Baptist Church on December 31, 2024; and

WHEREAS, Shiloh Baptist Church held a Grand Retirement Gala for Reverend Doctor
Smith on Saturday, February 8, 2025.

RESOLVED, BY THE COUNCIL OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, That this
resolution may be cited as the “Reverend Doctor Wallace Charles Smith Day Recognition
Resolution of 2025”.

Sec. 2. The Council of the District of Columbia declares February 8, 2025, as Reverend
Doctor Wallace Charles Smith Day in the District of Columbia.

Sec. 3. This resolution shall take effect immediately.