Craig D. Townsend complicates some of the common stereotypes about free blacks in the antebellum American North in this engaging history of St Phillips Church. Located in New York City, the Episcopalian St Phillips, an offshoot of Trinity Church, was established in 1809. It grew in size and importance and by the 1830s had the second largest black congregation in the city, at a time when most African-Americans were gravitating towards evangelical denominations. The fascinating story of St Phillips's paradoxical struggle for autonomy and acceptance in an era when the boundaries of free black life were being tightened considerably provides an insight not only into the ways in which race and racism played out within the hierarchical Episcopalian Church, but in a much wider sense as well. This book is much more than an institutional or congregational history, as it takes a broad historical view of African-American life at a critical juncture (slavery formally came to an end in New York as late as 1827). The reader is given a penetrating insight into the critical figures in the story, and the difficult issues which they faced, such as the pioneering black preacher Peter Williams and his successors, their abolitionist patrons such as John Jay and Gerrit Smith, as well as the rank-and-file members of the congregation that included porters, clerks, sailors, factory workers and labourers. Moreover, St Phillips boasted many remarkably talented and historically significant members. Probably most famous of all was the black physician and intellectual James McCune Smith and the hitherto little-known religious role which he played is deftly recounted. Indeed, the author links people and events to the broader historical and historiographical context with great insight throughout this book. Faith in their own color will be of interest to all historians of the antebellum North and deserves a wide readership.