Mount Ararat Baptist Church: history

              Archaeological component
Although no formal archaeological survey has been conducted, the potential for subsurface materials exists.
VIII. Significance
Mount Ararat Baptist Church is eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places under Criterion A and the related
themes of Social History and Ethnic Identity as a locally significant property associated with the Alabama Christian Movement
for Human Rights and the Civil Rights Movement in Birmingham from 1956 to 1963.
Baptists associated with the earlier Shiloh Baptist Church of Ensley established Mt. Ararat Missionary Baptist Church on this
hill in the Sherman Heights section of the Ensley neighborhood in c. 1915, purchasing the property from the Tennessee Coal
and Iron Company (TCI}. The property is on the western boundaries of the TCI's Ensley works. Rev. A. J. Williams was the
first minister. Their first church, erected in 1916, burned after a lightning strike in 1929. The congregation then hired African­American
architect Wallace Rayfield to design a larger and more architecturally distinctive sanctuary, a frame Gothic-styled
building, at the same location as the first church. ·
Although reported dates differ somewhat, the church was remodeled in c. 1953 (the dedication stone says "reerected"} with
addition to the balcony space and destruction of the top of the tower and filling in of the fa~ade to the tower line. A new brick
veneer was added to the earlier frame building and the education and administrative building was added to the rear of the
church .
The 1950s changes came under the leadership of Rev. John H. Glover, who was the pastor from 1936 to 197 ~- Rev. Glover
expanded the church's education mission and community outreach programs. He wanted the church's new distinguished
brick exterior to emphasize the stability and achievement of the congregation. African Americans gathered for meetings in
the large open sanctuary of Mount Ararat Baptist. Rev. Glover arrived as a New Deal reformer and encouraged a spirit of
activism in all aspects of church life. With the creation of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights in 1956,
several members of the congregation became active in the Civil Rights Movement. In its 1958 annual report, the ACMHR
listed the church among a number of others "where we have met-so many times" and where the doors had been
"generously opened for us." In this listing, the ACMHR asserted that "This is a people's movement-of all the people.
Nothing stops the people from enthusiastically coming each night to sing, pray and to give. These are Mass heroes."
Historians of the Civil Rights Movement have long discussed the intersection of faith and activism in the mass meetings held
at various Birmingham churches. Historian and Baptist minister Wilson Fallin, Jr., emphasized:
The influence of the African-American church and its peculiar culture on the ACMHR stands out most vividly in the
organization's weekly mass meetings. These meetings were essentially African-American church worship services.
The meetings began with a thirty-minute devotional service made up of prayers, spirituals, and meter hymns,
followed by singing by the ACMHR choir. The presider, usually ACMHR vice-present, the Reverend Edward
Gardner, offered brief remarks . A local supporting pastor delivered a sermon . President Shuttlesworth then made
some remarks and the ushers took up the offering. The meetings were very emotional with much shouting ... The
emotionalism of the mass meetings, as in an African-American church, provided not only emotional release but also
the courage to fight the forces of segregation in a hostile environment. (Fallin, 15-16)
Furthermore, the mass meetings were important tools of oral communication for a society that had few other public options,
since open discussion of civil rights strategies over the airwaves or in print could provoke severe reactions from white
extremists. Furthermore, activists knew that to reach the core working-class residents of their neighborhoods, meetings in
the churches were much more effective venues than print or electronic media. It was thus at the churches where activists,
often a combination of local ministers, community leaders, and the occasional visitor from another Civil Rights hotbed,
relayed the important messages and key strategies to be debated and carried out. The churches were safe havens in an
often hostile environment.