Abyssinian Baptist Church

One of New York’s oldest Black congregations, where both Powells served and Martin Luther King Jr. preached

Local name: Abyssinian Baptist Church

Collection: Harlem and Upper Manhattan · USA · Open in OpenStreetMap

Abyssinian Baptist Church on 138th Street · Beyond My Ken, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons

The story

Before you is the Abyssinian Baptist Church, one of the oldest Black congregations in New York. Its story began in June 1808. A small group of Black worshippers walked out of the First Baptist Church in Lower Manhattan, where they were made to sit apart from white members. On the eighth of December 1809, the new congregation was incorporated under the name Abyssinian, the ancient name for Ethiopia. It was helped by the Reverend Thomas Paul of Boston. For almost a hundred years the congregation moved along with the city’s Black residents: from Worth Street to Greenwich Village, then to 40th Street. On the thirtieth of December 1908, Adam Clayton Powell Sr. became pastor. It was he who brought the congregation to Harlem. This church of dark Manhattan schist with white terra cotta was dedicated on the seventeenth of June 1923. In 1930 a young German theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, worshipped here and taught Sunday school. He later became known for resisting the Nazis. In 1937 his son, Adam Clayton Powell Jr., became pastor. In 1941 he was elected to the City Council, and later to the U.S. Congress. He fought to get Black workers hired on equal terms. Under him the congregation grew to more than ten thousand members, one of the largest Protestant congregations in the world. In 1965 Martin Luther King Jr. preached here. And the church choir is so famous that on Sundays people come here from all over the world.

Visiting

132 West 138th Street (also called Odell Clark Place), Harlem. Subway: the 2 or 3 train to 135th Street. This is a working church: Sunday service is at 10 a.m., everyone is welcome, and there is no strict dress code. It is a service, not a concert, so please keep quiet.