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Second African Baptist Church

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1926; 1999 restoration, Gunn Meyerhoff Shay Architects. 123 Houston St.

The congregation of Second African Baptist church has met at this location since its founding in 1802. The original wood church building was raised a full story in 1889, following the trend of Savannah’s churches set on trust lots to have elevated sanctuaries with multipurpose spaces below. The present plain brick structure was built when the wooden superstructure burned in 1926. William Tecumseh Sherman read Field Order No. 15, offering freed slaves forty acres, in the original building, and Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” sermon here in 1963 (as he did elsewhere) prior to the March on Washington later that year. The restoration of 1999 included the installation of an elevator in the foyer.

Writing Credits

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

What's Nearby

Greene Square
Susannah R. Clarke House
Timothy Bonticou Double House
Frederick Ball House
Columbia Square

Citation

Robin B. Williams with David Gobel, Patrick Haughey, Daves Rossell, and Karl Schuler, "Second African Baptist Church", [Savannah, Georgia], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/GA-02-4.17.

Print Source

Buildings of Savannah, Robin B. Williams. With David Gobel, Patrick Haughey, Daves Rossell, and Karl Schuler. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2016, 88-89.

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