Canaan Baptist Church

About this property

Canaan Baptist Church is a Baptist church located in Bessemer, Alabama. It is affiliated with the National Baptist Convention, USA. Built in 1961, it had a congregation active in the Civil Rights Movement of the 20th century and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2005. Established in 1865 by W. M. Grimes, a white minister, Canaan Baptist is among the oldest African-American Baptist congregations in Bessemer. Many of its congregation had belonged to the white-dominated Canaan Baptist Church before the American Civil War but, with freedom, wanted to have an independent congregation. Southern African-American congregations soon set up state Baptist associations, aided by churches in the Midwest, and eventually the National Baptist Convention (which split in the 20th century). The "white" Canaan Baptist church also still operates in Bessemer as part of the Southern Baptist Convention. Canaan Baptist Church in Bessemer was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2005 for its role as a locally significant property and key strategy center in the city during the Civil Rights Movement in the Birmingham area from the early to mid-1960s. The African-American congregation of Canaan Baptist has occupied this lot in downtown Bessemer since 1889. The first church building on the current lot, at the corner of 9th Avenue and 15th Street, was opened in 1940 during the ministry of E. L. Plant. It was completed until 1947. The following year the J. H. Browder became the minister of Canaan Baptist Church. The present church building, constructed in 1961, is the second on the lot and was built under the direction of Browder, with George Wilson of Selma, Alabama, as the contractor. Under the leadership of Browder, who was pastor of Canaan Baptist from 1948 until his death in March 1964, the congregation was active in the civil rights movement. Browder significantly expanded the public outreach and service of the church. He improved church administration and greatly expanded educational programs, establishing a youth department and educational department, a Christian Aid Union, a Sunday School program, and a Matrons Department. He also was active, along with other members of the congregation, in the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights in the late 1950s. Browder and Canaan Baptist gained a reputation locally for being a strong voice for equal rights, voting rights, and public desegregation at a time when African Americans were segregated by law and custom. They had been effectively disenfranchised under the state constitution since the late 19th century. Browder preached equality and fairness from the pulpit every Sunday. He strongly supported local efforts to desegregate schools after the United States Supreme Court's ruling in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) that segregation of public schools was unconstitutional as a denial of due process and equal rights.

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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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