A tribute to our time at 200 Maryland Avenue

Through 12 presidential administrations, four chief justices of the Supreme Court, and five executive directors, you could always find BJC in one location: the third floor of 200 Maryland Avenue in Washington, D.C.

Now we are moving to a new building and, for the first time in 60 years, we will advance the cause of religious liberty from a different headquarters.

We trace our roots to 1936, but BJC didn’t have a physical office until 10 years later when Executive Director J.M. Dawson secured space at 715 8th Street, N.W., on the campus of Calvary Baptist Church near the Chinatown area of Washington. In 1948, we moved to a building known as the “Baptist Building” at 1628 16th Street, N.W., in the DuPont Circle area, which housed the D.C. Baptist Convention, the Baptist World Alliance, and BJC. After staying there for more than a decade, BJC moved into the Veterans of Foreign Wars building at 200 Maryland Avenue, N.E., on July 1, 1965.

The announcement in Report from the Capital touted how the new location would increase the effectiveness of BJC’s work. “Close proximity to the Library of Congress, the Supreme Court, the Capitol, and the Senate and House office buildings will be especially valuable to the research and information programs, [Executive Director C. Emanuel Carlson] said.”

And it was valuable indeed.

Editions of Report from the Capital were created in the space — from the days of cropping photos with grease pencils to the computer software we use now.

Amicus briefs were drafted and filed at the Supreme Court.

Books were written inside those walls — first on typewriters and later on computers.

Videos were filmed.

Podcasts were recorded.

Faxes were sent and received.

Emails were composed.

Staff members gathered for meetings, for lunches, and for birthday celebrations, exchanging cards and singing deliberately off-key to showcase the “soul freedom” all Baptists can appreciate.
Board meetings were held in the building — often on the first floor in what is known as “Ketchum Hall.”

Press conferences were held at the address.

Retirements were announced.

New executive directors were elected.

And everyone who came to the office walked up the same marble steps at the front of the building.

Some of our biggest legislative victories were brokered from the address. BJC’s leadership of the vast coalition that worked to pass landmark legislation, including the Religious Freedom Restoration Act in 1993, can be seen through the letterhead created for those years of work — it has the return address of 200 Maryland Avenue.

There were many key legislative victories that were orchestrated there: The Equal Access Act of 1984. The Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000. When the Johnson Amendment was under threat in 2017, we had several meetings in the same space, strategizing and monitoring activities.

When BJC created the essay scholarship contest in the 2000s, we received hundreds of physical entries from across the country. The last two days of the deadline each year emulated the scene at the end of “Miracle on 34th Street” when the post office brings in letters to Santa Claus — mail crates would appear, full of envelopes addressed to us at 200 Maryland Avenue.

Supporters of BJC will remember the redesign and renovation of the space in 2012 to transform the small, individual offices into BJC’s Center for Religious Liberty on Capitol Hill. It created an office area that was more modern, open, and — like our move to the building itself in 1965 — helped us expand and increase the effectiveness of our work. We now had new ways to work together as a team, host visitors, and — perhaps most importantly — create more educational programs. Hundreds of students of all ages gathered in our conference suite over the years to be introduced to our work and engage in conversation.

When you dig through BJC’s photo archive, you can find very few pictures taken in the office itself before the 2012 redesign. Many of our activities took place outside of our walls — our Capitol Hill location gave us the ability to get the job done as well as get to important gatherings in D.C.

And while we’ve been in the building, we’ve grown in ways few could have imagined in 1965. There were four full-time staff members then, and we now have 14, spread out across the country. Our office gave us the foundation to do that — and more.

Our work began before we were located at 200 Maryland Avenue, and it will continue as our headquarters moves to a new location in the Capitol Hill area. But we would be remiss not to stop and appreciate the achievements that happened at the address, as well as how we’ve grown in so many different ways while we’ve been inside those walls.

May the legacy continue in our new space.

See more photos — and share your own! — by visiting our special Kudoboard page dedicated to the building.

This article originally appeared in the winter 2025 edition of Report from the Capital. You can view it as a PDF or read a digital flip-through edition.