Mt Ararat Missionary Baptist Church
Mt Ararat Missionary Baptist Church is located at 2001 Slayden Avenue at Birmingport Road in the Sherman Heights section of Ensley. Its historic building added to the to the National Register of Historic Places in 2005. There and elsewhere it is listed by the name Mt Ararat Baptist Church.
The congregation was organized around 1915. It erected its first church in 1916. It was replaced by the present building designed pioneering African American architect Wallace Rayfield in 1929. The earlier buidling had been damaged by lightening. In 1950 a red brick veneer was added.
The building hosted many meetings of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights, but after the Ku Klux Klan burned a cross outside the church in c. 1958 and a direct threat was made against the church Pastor John Glover stopped allowing the church to be used for meetings. Members continue to active in the Civil Rights Movement.
Pastors
- John Glover, 1936-1973
- Albert Bry, 1988-2000
References
- White, Marjorie Longenecker (1998) A Walk to Freedom: The Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth and the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights, 1956-1964. Birmingham: Birmingham Historical Society. ISBN 0943994241
- Van West, Carroll, Linda Nelson, and Marjorie White (March 20, 2004) "Mount Ararat Missionary Baptist Church / Mount Ararat Baptist Church National Register of Historic Places Registration Form" National Park Service, accessed July 23, 2022.
- "Mount Ararat Baptist Church (Ensley, Alabama)" (May 25, 2022) Wikipeida- accessed July 23, 2022