Enslaved people who had previously attended Baptist services with their White enslavers in Thomasville began holding separate services at the First Baptist Church in 1853. In 1866, they established the First African Baptist Church. The first pastor, Rev. Jacob Wade, served from the establishment until his death in 1877.
The present church building was completed in 1900. The congregation continued its association with the African Baptist Church until 1964, when they reorganized as First Missionary Baptist Church.
The church was granted $155,000 in 2024 from the National Trust for Historic Preservation for future efforts to preserve the property.
Dawson Street Residential Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
Black Rock AME Church was established in 1868 by freedmen, most of whom had been members of the white Independence Methodist Church in nearby Tignall. The old church building was moved in 1870 to land given to the congregation by member John Stovall Poole, Sr. (1820-1893). The plain style church remained unchanged until the steeple and vestibule were added to the front circa 1900. The style is sometimes called “wedding cake” for its stacked construction and is quite rare in Georgia.
One of the large rocks that inspired the church’s name was engraved to commemorate their anniversary in 1940. Rev. J. Clinton chose Matthew 21:42 to represent the strength and faith of the congregation: The stone which the builders rejected became the cornerstone of the building.
Rocks of this type are common in Georgia’s “Granite Belt” and often give names to places and geographical features throughout the region.
Slabs of local stone are commonly used for headstones in most of the older cemeteries in this part of the state. I’ll update this one if I can decipher the name.
Rev. C. M. Pinkleton (28 November 1856-13 March 1905)
Monuments ranging from simple to formal are found throughout the historic cemetery. Many of those buried here were formerly enslaved.
Emily Hawes (1834-16 October 1899)
Emily was the wife of Fate Hawes. The typical stenciled headstone is a common vernacular form.
Rust Chapel Methodist Episcopal Church was established by Freedmen soon after the Civil War, in 1867. In 1869, a charity of the northern Methodist Episcopal Church known as the Freedmen’s Aid Society established a school and church, named Rust Chapel for Rev. Richard S. Rust, who served as secretary of the society.
The old day chapel which had been used on the Emory College campus was donated to Rust Chapel and moved to this location. After it burned in the early 1900s, the present structure was built. Rust Chapel continued to operate a school, essential in the Jim Crow South, until the construction of a Rosenwald school.
I’m unsure if the church was included in the National Register Historic District when it was created in 1975, but it certainly should be. It’s physically part of the district and of equal importance to other public buildings, so I’m including it for reference.
Oxford Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
New Corinth Baptist Church is an historic Freedmen’s congregation and perhaps the oldest Black church standing in Sumter County. According to the National Register of Historic Places, it was built by William Hooks in 1870, using lumber from his own mill, for his African-American laborers and their families. Though such a largesse wasn’t unique, it was nonetheless quite unusual at the time. This was just five years after the Civil War. The congregation grew into one of the largest in Southwest Georgia, with nearly 300 members by 1894. A school on the grounds, which is no longer extant, served children of the community until the 1940s.
Jones Chapel C. M. E. Church was likely a Freedmen congregation, formed in the years after the Civil War when Black Georgians were establishing their own churches away from the plantations where they had been enslaved. I have been unable to locate any history, and don’t know if it was originally associated with the Christian Methodist Episcopal movement or if it was an independent congregation. I confirmed it was a C. M. E. church through obituaries. There are a few members of a Jones family buried in its historic cemetery. Perhaps there are clues as to its origin in their stories. The church building as it stands today was likely built in the late 1800s or early 1900s.
The church survives in an idyllic setting today, beside a pond surrounded by a managed longleaf pine plantation, but the pond is a recent addition, dating to circa 2009-2010. Nonetheless, it’s not every day you see an old church with its own dock. The church isn’t part of the managed property, according to maps, but is likely an easement for the surviving family of its former members.
Beech* Grove is an historic African-American church near the Irwins Crossroads community of Washington County. I haven’t located any congregational history, but it’s likely a Freedmen church. It was probably built in the early 1900s. A small adjacent cemetery indicates that the Cannida family were its most active members. The oldest member, using this method of identification, was Willie Lee Cannida (1865-1961). The church was active until at least 2011, as I found a church bulletin for a homecoming from that year.
This unusual outbuilding stands near the rear of the church, and was possibly an office or Sunday school room. I first thought it might be a privy, but I don’t think a privy would have windows. A tin-sided privy was actually located beyond this structure. It’s a neat little building, whatever its purpose.
*-Many maps and online sources spell the church “Beach” Grove, but the program I discovered inside used the “Beech” spelling, as in the tree, so I’m going with that.
Virgil Chapel is one of the earliest African-American congregations in Randolph County. It was founded in a brush arbor in 1868. Rev. Green McCarthy of Benevolence Baptist Church appointed Rev. J. Simpson as the first full-time pastor. Deacons were: Jake Gilbert, Green Johnson, John Thomas and William Jones. The congregation met for many years in the brush arbor. It was circa 1880 before the first permanent church was built. As the years went on the membership continued to grow. The present church was constructed during the pastorate of Rev. C. C. Scott in 1934 to accommodate this expansion.
The plain style Mount Zion Primitive Baptist Church is one of the few tangible landmarks of the Doyle community, sometimes described as Putnam-Doyle, for inclusion of the nearby ghost town of Putnam. The post office in Doyle was open from 1891-1957, but was known as Wigginsville when it first opened in 1889. It was apparently named for Miss Jennie Doyle White Rogers.
According to Clarence White, from which all the following history is credited, the congregation was established in a brush arbor after the Civil War, and the present church building dates to at least 1888. The property was expanded by a gift from Ida Munroe, a professor and member of the Stevens family, large landowners and, formerly, slaveholders. Mr. White notes that Mount Zion served as anchor to the large African-American population of the communities of Putnam and Doyle.
A schoolhouse [in use until the construction of an Equalization School in Buena Vista in 1957] and the White Pearl Lodge #30 were located near the church. The lodge was destroyed by a tornado in the 1940s. Regarding the lodge, Mr. White wrote: Annually, on the second Sunday in June the lodge held a public program and ceremony at Samuel Chapel, which was known as a “turn-out.” This dignified event had a measure of simple, rural formality in an atmosphere of gentility and community fellowship. Lodge members dressed similarly, including the wearing of ceremonial badges. Unforgettable feasts were spread on the churchyard at the conclusion of the program; these were massive potlucks of meats, vegetables, salads, breads, cakes and pies brought by the women of the lodge in cardboard boxes and served with fresh-squeezed lemonade from one of the largest of galvanized tin tubs reserved for this singular use.
White’s description of this ritual is even more fascinating: The third Sunday in August was Big Meeting Day at Mt Zion, and nightly revival meetings (by kerosene lamp light before electricity) preceded the huge Sunday gathering. The occasion was a kind of festive homecoming attended by hundreds, many of whom returned from the Northern cities to which they had migrated beginning in the 1920s. There were concession stands that sold food and snacks. Cars and trucks overflowed the churchyard and were parked everywhere along Mt Zion Road, sometimes reaching to Highway 26. Moonshiners discreetly made their products available, being watchful for law enforcement officers who might suddenly appear. As the long day wore on, old family feuds might suddenly reignite. In addition to two services inside the church, there was a lively social scene outside the church. People came to see and be seen, to promenade—in their Sunday best. Indeed many attendees never set foot in the church; for them, visiting and being in the sprawling scene were how the much anticipated day was spent.
Located beside the Colored Hospital, Campbell Chapel is believed to be the oldest black congregation in Americus. In 1869, it began as a part of the white Methodist church, but its members, mostly freedmen, withdrew and formed an independent Methodist congregation, originating with brush arbor meetings led by Rev. Braswell. In 1877, under the leadership of Bishop Campbell, they purchased this lot in the McCoy Hill neighborhood and built a wood frame church to house their growing membership. The congregation named themselves for Bishop Campbell. As Campbell Chapel grew, becoming the “Mother Church” of Americus, the old church was razed and this structure built in its place, in 1920.
The new church cost $20,000 to build and while the congregation counted most of the doctors and other middle class black professionals of Americus among its members and generous donors; Dr. E. J. Brinson, a black physician, successfully solicited donations from members of the white community. The church history is proud to point out that much of the money was raised from small donations by working class members such as sharecroppers and domestics, who often made less than fifty cents per day.
Significantly, it is the work of Georgia’s first registered African-American architect, Macon native Louis H. Persley (1888-1932). After studies at Lincoln University and the Carnegie Institute of Technology [now Carnegie-Mellon University] and teaching architecture for a year at Tuskegee University, Persley and fellow black architect Robert Robinson Taylor (1868-1942) formed the firm of Taylor and Persley. Taylor was America’s first formally trained black architect. Theirs was one of the earliest, if not the first, professional architectural firm of black ownership in the United States. Persley went on to design numerous structures on the campus of Tuskegee University, but also had other commissions in Georgia, including the First A. M. E. Church and Samaritan Building in Athens, and the Chambliss Hotel and Central City Funeral Home in Macon. I believe the Athens and Americus churches are his only two surviving works in Georgia.
The landmark has fallen into disrepair in recent years, but thanks to a grant from the National Park Service, will be restored, along with the Americus Colored Hospital. I had a nice encounter with Bishop Melvin McCluster, of neighboring Friendship Missionary Baptist Church, who told me he had been looking forward to it being restored to its rightful purpose for many years. He noted that the congregation was still active and presently meets in Elijah Smith, Sr., Worship Center across the street. Rev. Gloria F. Wynds is the current pastor.
West Point Missionary Baptist Church is an historic African-American congregation in the Westwood community of Fitzgerald. Westwood was populated by skilled African-American machinists, most of whom worked in the nearby Atlantic Coast Line Railroad shops. It’s interesting that the establishment of the church predates the settlement of Fitzgerald and the location of the railroad by nearly 20 years. The present structure was built in 1972.
The church, which is the center of the Westwood community today, recently lost its well-loved and long serving pastor, Reverend Willie B. Pride (1938-2020).
