Oak Street Baptist Church: history and property description

              VIII. Significance
Organized in 1916, Oak Street Baptist Church is eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places under Criterion
A, as one of the churches involved in the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights in the Civil Rights era . It meets the
registration requirements for Criterion A as found in the Birmingham's Civil Rights Movement, 1933-1979 MPS.
The congregation initially worshipped in a small frame gable-front church at 3020 North 33rct Way, a building that it replaced
with a new sanctuary at 2810 Huntsville Road in 1937. Both buildings were unadorned, smallish, and lacked modern utilities .
Thus, with a confidence born from its involvement in the early years of the Civil Rights Movement, with a growth in
attendance and members, and with improved economic means by its members, the church built the present building, which
was located in a newer suburban area of the Collegeville neighborhood, in 1961-62. At the time of its construction, Rev. C.
M. Murdock was the pastor; E. Marshall was chairman of the deacons, and A. J. Hooper was chairman of the trustees . Rev.
Murdock had replaced Rev . Charles L. Vincent, who had first led the congregation in active participation in the Alabama
Christian Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR). Rev. Murdock continued that tradition for 40 years, serving until the end of
the century.
According to an interview with former ACMHR secretary Lola Hendricks, conducted by the Birmingham Historical Society,
Oak Street Baptist was one of the key Collegeville congregations supporting the ACMHR. Rev. C. L. Vincent, along with Mrs.
L. M. Beavers as Clerk and Mrs . Rammie Gray as Secretary, were listed as sponsors of the ACMHR's 1958 annual report.
Rev. Vincent had been on the founding committee of the ACMHR in 1956. Historians of the Civil Rights Movement have long
discussed the intersection of faith and activism in the mass meetings held at various Birmingham churches. Hi i -orian 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)
From 1956 to 1958, the fledgling organization relied on churches near Bethel Baptist Church in Collegeville for its core
membership and volunteer support. Then in 1961, the church closed its building on the Huntsville highway (US 31) and
moved more in the center of the Collegeville neighborhood on North 33rct Way, where the new building was situated in a
recent suburban development of Ranch-Style and Minimal Traditional-style homes. The Birmingham police did not record
any ACMHR mass meetings at the Oak Street Baptist Church between 1961 and 1963, but the new building was a place
where civil rights issues were identified, discussed, and reactions planned, especially how the congregation would involve
itself with the Project C demonstrations of April 1963. In 1964-165, the congregation held meetings on voter registration
issues at the church.
Oak Street Baptist Church is also significantly associated with the theme of Implementing the Civil Rights Movement in
Birmingham between 1964 and 1979. The church has been the weekly location of the meetings for the Collegeville
Neighborhood Association since the passage of the federal Housing and Community Development Act of 197 4.
Birmingham's neighborhood associations helped local black residents translate the gains and new freedoms afforded by the
Civil Rights Movement into local, neighborhood-focused political power that also solidified African-American identity and
attachment to place. (Interestingly, these regularly scheduled meetings at Oak Street Baptist take place on Monday evenings,