WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama is attending Easter services at a Washington church founded in 1863 by freed slaves.
The first family is at Shiloh Baptist Church, less than two miles north of the White House.
According to the church's pastor, 21 freed slaves made it to the nation's capital from Fredericksburg, Va., to establish a place where they could worship freely and where "they could reach others with the good news of their salvation."
Wallace Charles Smith wrote last September, on the church's 147th anniversary, that the group "could not see the way ahead ... but went forth to a land they felt God had given them."
Last Easter, the Obamas worshipped at a historically black Methodist church in a different part of the city.
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