O U R S T O R Y
In 1904, the late Reverend Dr. John A. White assumed the spiritual leadership of the church. Under his visionary ministry, land was purchased on Belvidere and on Calhoun Streets and in 1917, construction began on a new church building which was dedicated for service in the spring of 1918. Reverend Dr. White served loyally and faithfully for 42 years. Rev. Dr. White made history by becoming the first president of the Trenton NAACP Branch and by being appointed to a special commission to study the progress of African Americans 50 years after the Emancipation Proclamation in 1915. He resigned only when the officers and the membership of the church agreed to his recommendation that the Reverend S. Howard Woodson, Jr. be called.
The late Reverend Dr. Samuel Howard Woodson, Jr. served as Pastor of the Shiloh Baptist Church for 53 years (1946-1999). When he assumed leadership of the church, our congregation numbered approximately 218. Under Reverend Woodson's leadership the church numbered more than 1,000. The increasing membership and the mounting demands for enlarged worship and community services challenged us to undertake the construction of a new edifice which was completed in 1972 and was estimated to be valued at more than 1.2 million dollars, making it one of the largest and most expensive capital building projects of any black church throughout New Jersey.
For most of his 53-year pastoral tenure, Rev. Dr. S. H. Woodson, Jr. served in a dual capacity as an elected official and senior pastor of the Shiloh Baptist Church. During the Civil Rights era of American history, he basically integrated politics in Trenton, Mercer County, throughout New Jersey, and across America. He made history when he was elected the first speaker of the NJ State Legislature in the 1970s, making him the first black person to serve in such capacity in the U.S.! He served in the administrations of several New Jersey Governors and was the first Commissioner of the Department of Personnel, now the Department of Labor and Workforce Development. Reverend Dr. Woodson trained dozens of seminarians and future pastors, one of whom was Darrell L. Armstrong who served as his last Assistant Pastor.
In January of 2000, Reverend Darrell L. Armstrong was elected, by a 95% majority vote, as the third Pastor in approximately 100 years, to lead Shiloh's congregation into the 21st century. Reverend Armstrong, a native of Los Angeles, California, was a graduate of Stanford University (BA in Public Policy) and Princeton Theological Seminary (Master’s of Divinity) and would go on to earn a degree from The College of New Jersey (post-masters in Marriage & Family Therapy). He has made his own mark on Shiloh and history by being the first Non-Presbyterian to be elected to the Princeton Theological Seminary Board of Trustees, the first in the school’s nearly 200-year history! He is committed to ecumenical and inter-religious dialogue.
Under Rev. Armstrong’s leadership, the church membership and resources increased exponentially. Rev. Armstrong led the church to a new campaign of environmental awareness and stewardship by launching a solar panel project in 2010, the first of any house of worship in the City of Trenton. Also under his leadership the church launched an ambitious “Urban Campus Initiative” which sought to purchase abandoned and blighted properties within a quarter mile radius of the church and to redevelop and renovate them into a multi-site “spiritual empowerment and family wellness zone.” This project grew into Vision 2020, a comprehensive community revitalization effort, which includes the building of the Rev. Dr. S. Howard Woodson Family Life Center. It is a plan that seeks to provide resources and breathe new life into the once thriving community that surrounds the Church, an effort which projects up to $50 million in urban investments. In Reverend Armstrong’s words, “we are committed to revitalizing Trenton from the inside out!”