Back in September 1963, a bomb was detonated at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, killing four innocent Black girls and injuring dozens more. A white supremacist terrorist group had committed the heinous crime.
Black churches have always been under the threat of destruction for the mere act of congregating. The National Trust for Historic Preservation has taken notice. Through its African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund, it is awarding $8.5 million in grants to 30 historically Black churches as a part of its third annual Preserving Black Churches grant program. The Action Fund is the nation’s largest resource dedicated to preserving historic African American sites.
Black churches have served as a haven for people of color to unite in their faith and as a space to enact change. From his pulpit at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, Martin Luther King, Jr. galvanized the community in the rise of the Civil Rights movement.
But the threat of attack is always looming. In November 2022, two churches, Greater Bethlehem Temple Church and Epiphany Church, in Jackson, Mississippi, burned overnight. “I’ve seen churches burn in my hometown of Tulsa, Oklahoma,” an EBONY reader shared.
These 30 worship sites will receive grants ranging from $50,000 to $500,000 to support ongoing and planned restoration work. According to the organization, it “will help congregations address urgent preservation challenges such as demolition threats, deferred maintenance and structural issues, in addition to providing critical resources to help congregations strengthen their stewardship plans, enhance asset management and grow fundraising capacity nationwide.”
Here are the 2025 Preserving Black Churches Grantees :
- Historic Bethel Baptist Church – Birmingham, AL
- St. Paul United Methodist Church – Birmingham, AL
- First Congregational Church of Marion – Marion, AL
- GLIDE Memorial Church – San Francisco, CA
- Zoar Methodist Episcopal Church – Odessa, DE
- West Hunter Street Baptist Church – Atlanta, GA
- First African Methodist Episcopal Church of Athens Inc. – Athens, GA
- St. James AME Church – Columbus, GA
- Ninth Street Missionary Baptist Church – Lawrence, KS
- Saint John African Methodist Episcopal Church – Frankfort, KY
- Antioch Baptist Church – Shreveport, LA
- Quinn Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church – Frederick, MD
- New Bethel Baptist Church – Detroit, MI
- Anna Bell Chapel A.M.E. Church – New Haven, MO
- St. Alphonsus Liguori “Rock” Catholic Church – St. Louis, MO
- AME Zion Church of Kingston – Kingston, NY
- The AME Zion Church Inc. – Charlotte, NC
- Dickerson Chapel AME Church – Hillsborough, NC
- St. Mark’s Presbyterian Church – Cleveland, OH
- Campbell African Methodist Episcopal Church of Media – Media, PA
- Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church – Lancaster, PA
- Soapstone Baptist Church – Marietta, SC
- New Tabernacle Fourth Baptist Church – Charleston, SC
- Taveau Church – Camden, SC
- Historic Pickett Chapel – Lebanon, TN
- Dabney Hill Missionary Baptist Church, Inc. – Snook Hill, TX
- Boynton United Methodist Church – Houston, TX
- Mount Carmel Missionary Baptist Church – Milwaukee, WI
- New Salem Baptist Church – Elkins, WV
