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Photo, Print, Drawing Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church, 454 Dexter Avenue, Montgomery, Montgomery County, AL

[ Photos from Survey HABS AL-994  ]

More Resources

[ Drawings from Survey HABS AL-994  ]
[ Data Pages from Survey HABS AL-994  ]
[ Photo Captions from Survey HABS AL-994  ]

About this Item

Title

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

Names

  • Historic American Buildings Survey, creator
  • King, Martin Luther, Jr
  • Watkins, William
  • Anderson, Pelham J
  • National Park Service, Southeast Regional Office , sponsor
  • Jacobs, James A, project manager
  • McNatt, Jason W, field team
  • De Sousa, Daniel, field team
  • Kidd, Anne E, field team
  • Lowe, Jet, photographer
  • Jacobs, James A, historian

Created / Published

  • Documentation compiled after 1933

Headings

  • -  brick
  • -  brick foundations
  • -  brickwork
  • -  gable roofs
  • -  corbels
  • -  brackets (structural elements)
  • -  churches
  • -  Gothic Revival architectural elements
  • -  Victorian architectural elements
  • -  stained glass
  • -  choir lofts
  • -  murals
  • -  pulpits
  • -  lancet windows
  • -  Baptist churches
  • -  civil rights
  • -  segregation
  • -  African Americans
  • -  race relations
  • -  race discrimination
  • -  turrets (towers)
  • -  Alabama--Montgomery County--Montgomery

Latitude / Longitude

  • 32.377274,-86.302687

Notes

  • -  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

Medium

  • Photo(s): 27
  • Color Transparencies: 5
  • Measured Drawing(s): 10
  • Data Page(s): 36
  • Photo Caption Page(s): 3

Call Number/Physical Location

  • HABS AL-994

Source Collection

  • Historic American Buildings Survey (Library of Congress)

Repository

Control Number

  • al1325

Rights Advisory

Online Format

  • image
  • pdf

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Cite This Item

Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate.

Chicago citation style:

Historic American Buildings Survey, Creator, Martin Luther King, William Watkins, Pelham J Anderson, Southeast Regional Office National Park Service, James A Jacobs, Jason W McNatt, Daniel De Sousa, Anne E Kidd, and James A Jacobs, Lowe, Jet, photographer. Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church, 454 Dexter Avenue, Montgomery, Montgomery County, AL. Alabama Montgomery County Montgomery, 1933. Documentation Compiled After. Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/al1325/.

APA citation style:

Historic American Buildings Survey, C., King, M. L., Watkins, W., Anderson, P. J., National Park Service, S. R. O., Jacobs, J. A. [...] Jacobs, J. A., Lowe, J., photographer. (1933) Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church, 454 Dexter Avenue, Montgomery, Montgomery County, AL. Alabama Montgomery County Montgomery, 1933. Documentation Compiled After. [Photograph] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/al1325/.

MLA citation style:

Historic American Buildings Survey, Creator, et al., photographer by Lowe, Jet. Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church, 454 Dexter Avenue, Montgomery, Montgomery County, AL. Documentation Compiled After. Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/al1325/>.