In the heart of what was once Britain's largest colony in the New World, a "secret" church reveals how Black people lived and worshipped in the US's earliest days.

The peal of a church bell cuts through the humid air in Williamsburg, Virginia. It's not just a call to worship; it's a declaration of resilience, faith and freedom. Since the United States' founding in 1776, African Americans have gathered at First Baptist Church, making it one of the nation's oldest continuous Black congregations.

Founded in 1632, Williamsburg served as the political and cultural capital of Britain's largest colony in the New World from 1699 to 1780. Today, Colonial Williamsburg – a 301-acre historic district featuring more than 600 restored and reconstructed homes, shops and taverns – is sometimes hailed as the "world's largest living history museum". Exploring its cobbled streets and interacting with its costumed interpreters offers a rare opportunity for visitors to time travel to the US's earliest days.

Williamsburg's taverns and government halls are where the US Founding Fathers debated the course of a new nation. Meanwhile, free and enslaved Black people – who comprised more than 52% of the town's population – toiled in its kitchens, built its homes and grew okra, basil and peanuts in its fields. They cooked the meals at King's Arms Tavern, crafted the bricks that line Duke of Gloucester Street and transported dignitaries in horse-drawn carriages, helping to shape the culture and foundation of what would become the United States.

Yet, it was illegal for Black residents to worship in a church without white supervision. "We did it anyway," said Connie Harshaw, president of the Let Freedom Ring Foundation, which works to conserve First Baptist Church's buildings and artefacts.

The church, founded by free and enslaved African Americans at the height of the American Revolution, is one of the first independent Black congregations in America. Its existence reveals how Black Americans were actively shaping their own destiny, even as they were denied basic human rights. Yet, for too long, the nation's foremost site of early American history offered only a fleeting acknowledgement of this story, mirroring the US's broader failure to reckon with its past.

Worshippers first met in secret, gathering on nearby plantations and later in a secluded, densely wooded area known as Raccoon Chase, where a historical plaque now stands. In 1776 – the same year the Declaration of Independence ironically proclaimed "All men are created equal" – the loosely knit congregation formalised itself as the Baptist "African church".

By 1805, a white landowner offered congregants a swampy plot on Nassau Street where they built their first meetinghouse. Although a tornado destroyed the church in 1834, the congregation, then 500 strong, rebuilt a larger brick church on the same spot in 1856. Women raised funds........

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