Reverend C. T. Walker (1858-1921)

Rev. Charles T. Walker was born into slavery in 1858 near Hephzibah, later moving to Augusta to study divinity at The Augusta Institute (now Morehouse College). Walker received his ordination at Franklin Covenant Baptist Church and established Augusta's Tabernacle Baptist Church in 1885. Walker traveled to the Middle East and Europe in 1891, visiting the renowned Rev. Charles Spurgeon's church in London. In 1899, President McKinley appointed him as a chaplain during the US occupation of Cuba following the Spanish-American War. Walker relocated to Mount Olivet Baptist Church in New York and established the first African-American YMCA in Harlem. Returning to Augusta, he hosted John D. Rockefeller and William Howard Taft at Tabernacle and Booker T. Washington and George Washington Carver at the Walker Baptist Institute. Walker lived at 1011 Gwinnett Street until his death in 1921.