This Gothic Revival brick church with a three-story crenellated corner tower was said to have been the largest black church of its time in the state built by black contractors. A massive pointed-arch window with tracery lights the interior, which could accommodate eight hundred people under its exposed wooden-truss ceiling. In the basement, a dining room, kitchen, and gymnasium provided additional amenities. Designer and builder Allein of Scranton, Pennsylvania, lived opposite at 1409 Jackson during the long construction project.
Nearby, St. Mary’s Catholic Church (1923; 901 2nd N Street), established in 1906 by Aloysius Heick, a German priest on a mission to African Americans, is distinguished by its three-stage corner tower with a flared pyramidal roof and a large window in the front gable. St. Mary’s Episcopal Church (1928; 900 1st N Street), designed by white builder/architect H. H. Havis, displays Italian Romanesque influence in its lively brickwork, corbeled front gable, and round arches. Fannie Willis Johnson funded the construction, allowing the congregation to move from its original frame building at 1013 Grove Street.
These churches anchored a middle-class African American neighborhood. The front-gabled bungalow (c. 1910) at 1325 Main Street houses the Jacqueline House Museum, operated by the Vicksburg African American Historical Preservation Foundation in memory of Jacqueline Robbins Rose, whose family operated the Robbins Funeral Home.
Nearby at 1403 Main, the McAllister House (c. 1910), a two-story wooden house with a one-story Tuscan-columned porch, was the longtime residence of Jane McAllister, who began her distinguished career in education with a Ph.D. in 1929 from Columbia University, the first black woman in the country to earn a doctorate in education. Her sister, Dorothy McAllister, who also grew up here, was the librarian for many years at Howard University.