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First African Baptist Church of East Savannah

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1897; 1950 rebuilt. 402 Treat Ave.

Strikingly traditional when it was rebuilt after a fire in 1950, this church closely resembles its namesake (5.3) on Franklin Square. A small portico marks the entrance to the tall stuccoed church, which has a two-stage tower, small belfry, and slender spire in the center of the facade. This institution anchored the 1872 neighborhood platted by prominent philanthropist Charles J. Hull (of Chicago’s Hull House fame). Just as slaves had looked to the original First African Baptist Church as a beacon of salvation, this portion of East Savannah became a new and unusual land of opportunity—bounded by Gwinette Street to Jones Street (now Iowa) and from Long Avenue east to the marsh—a remarkably large expanse of freely usable land in an otherwise highly restrictive landscape of the Jim Crow South.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Robin B. Williams with David Gobel, Patrick Haughey, Daves Rossell, and Karl Schuler
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Data

What's Nearby

Jamie Baker and Cliff Bowers House
Savannah Gardens
Savannah High School
Pine Gardens Neighborhood
Gordonston

Citation

Robin B. Williams with David Gobel, Patrick Haughey, Daves Rossell, and Karl Schuler, "First African Baptist Church of East Savannah", [Savannah, Georgia], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/GA-02-13.11.

Print Source

Buildings of Savannah, Robin B. Williams. With David Gobel, Patrick Haughey, Daves Rossell, and Karl Schuler. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2016, 218-218.

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