African American Studies Commons^™

Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, Kelli Johnson

Publications

In June 1905, on the fourth Sunday of that month, a petition signed by forty-one members of First Baptist Church was read. The petition asked for letters of dismissal from the Church in order to organize and start and new church. Those forty-one people wanted to create a new church that better met the needs of the community. After a vote, with only one dissent, the news was delivered to the Church clerk on a Thursday in July. This new church would become the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church.