Photo of Rhodes IL) giving a book gift to Wilson. ®

The speaker for March chapter of the Richard Henry Lee Chapter program was speaker Stephen Wilson. Mr.  Wilson is Executive Director at the St. John’s Church Foundation in Richmond, a nonprofit organization established in 1938 whose mission is to spark a global appreciation for understanding the role that Patrick Henry’s “Give me liberty or give me death!” speech had in setting America on its path to liberty for all, and to ignite the public’s interest in preserving the historic site where it happened on 23 March 1775.

Wilson has been at St. John’s Church Foundation since 2019. He served for two years as the organization’s first Director of Development and was named Executive Director in 2021.
Rhodes continued, Wilson has earned degrees from the University of Mary Washington and Richard Bland College of William and Mary, and he holds a certificate on Sustainable Urban Agriculture from Virginia State University.

Wilson then commenced his presentation. He first asked how many of the audience had visited St John’s Church. About 3/4^th of approximately 30 attendees raised their hand. Then he asked how many had seen a program at the site. Again most of the original group raised their hand. This would be a continuing theme for Wilson: visit St John’s Church and see a program.

Then Wilson shifted to his slides. The first slides depicted St. John’s Church as it looked when built in 1741. Then the slide showed how the Church looked like in March 1775 when Henry made his famous speech that concluded with the powerful words “Give me liberty or give me death.” He noted that the Church was the only building in the Richmond area large enough to accommodate the 2^nd Virginia Conference. Attendees at that Conference included Thomas Jefferson and George Washington.

To bolster the idea that Henry’s speech had a role on “setting America on its path to liberty for all” Wilson noted that the battles at Lexington and Concord occurred less than a month later on 19 April and had a connection with the Intolerable Act passed by the British parliament that among other things closed the port of Bostin until the Colonies paid for the tea dumped into sea at the Boston Tea Party in 1763.

Henry’s fame as a skilled orator preceded his famous speech.
He had ripped the British parliament’s Stamp Act on many occasions. He had called for a well-armed military in Virginia. He had argued for the independence of the Episcopal Church in Virginia

Much of the rest of Wilson’s presentation was about St. John’s Church. He encouraged visits to the Church and to attend the many of the programs offered. He noted that there were 9 professional actors to present the programs. The programs time and cost can be found at the Foundations web site: www.HistoricStJohnschurch.org, This concluded Wilson’s presentation. He received a standing ovation for his effort and President Rhodes presented him with a book as a gift for his presentation.