Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church, 454 Dexter Avenue, Montgomery, Montgomery County, AL

Significance: The Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church is a nationally significant site for its association with Martin Luther King, Jr. and the civil rights movement. The church was formally established in 1877 as an offshoot of the first independent black Baptist congregation in Montgomery, which had been founded a decade earlier in the wake of the Civil War. Initially operating out of a former slave trader's pen on the broad thoroughfare connecting downtown Montgomery with the State Capitol, the "Second Colored Baptist Church" purchased a prominent corner lot a few blocks to the east in 1879. Four years later, the congregation began construction of the present edifice. William Watkins, one of the church's founders and a builder-contractor, launched the project in 1883. While he oversaw all of the construction, the congregation retained a local Montgomery architect, Pelham J. Anderson, for the final design. The church was dedicated in 1889 and has remained in constant use since that time.

In 1954, Martin Luther King, Jr., arrived in Montgomery as the young new pastor for the congregation. During his tenure at Dexter, which would be his only full-time position as a pastor, King was, in his own words, "catapulted into the leadership of a movement which has succeeded in capturing the imagination of people all over this nation and the world." The movement to which he referred was a boycott of Montgomery buses in 1955-56 by black riders, a prolonged event that was sustained by King as president of the Montgomery Improvement Association. Initially seeking change within the Jim Crow system, the bus boycott ultimately led to complete desegregation of the city's buses. This outcome permanently altered the direction of the civil rights movement and set King on the path of civil rights leadership for which he is known worldwide today. For these reasons and for its centrality to the bus boycott, the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1974.

Unprocessed Field note material exists for this structure: N1524

Survey number: HABS AL-994

Building/structure dates: 1883-1889 Initial Construction

Building/structure dates: 1957-1958 Subsequent Work

Building/structure dates: 1977-1980 Subsequent Work

National Register of Historic Places NRIS Number: 74000431

brick foundations brickwork gable roofs corbels brackets structural elements churches gothic revival architectural elements victorian architectural elements stained glass choir lofts murals pulpits towers lancet windows baptist churches civil rights segregation african americans race relations race discrimination montgomery ala dexter dexter avenue memorial baptist church memorial baptist church montgomery county alabama sports alabama sports baptist church images black history month black history month turrets towers pelham j anderson daniel de sousa historic american buildings survey james a jacobs anne e kidd martin luther king jet lowe jason w mcnatt southeast regional office national park service william watkins photo american civil war civil war architecture clergy pastor building church buildings jim crow library of congress national register of historic places

1933 - 1980

Library of Congress

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