Hartford Memorial Baptist Church

The Hartford Memorial congregation was the first African American church on Detroit’s west side. It began, under Rev. Edgar Edwards (1875-1942), as the international, interracial, interdenominational Institutional Baptist Church in 1917. Under its second pastor, the Rev. Charles A. Hill (1893-1970), it was incorporated in 1921 as Hartford Avenue. In 1924, it built a new church at 6300 Hartford, where it remained until 1977. The church, through its ministries, led civil and equal rights efforts to organize Ford Motor Company United Automobile Workers, prevent the exclusion of blacks from the World War II era Sojourner Truth Housing Project, and support the 1986 Dearborn economic boycott. In 1977, Hartford Avenue Baptist Church moved into this building and took the name Hartford Memorial. When Covenant Baptist Church held the first worship services in the building on New Years Eve 1942, only the basement and entrances were complete due to World War II shortages. The sanctuary and two stories were added in 1950 and the north wing in 1962. Hartford remodeled the sanctuary in 1988 and added the large Petty-Madden pipe organ. The chapel was restored after a 1993 fire. Expanding its faith-based ministries, Hartford dedicated the Charles G. Adams Fellowship Hall in 1977, the Agape House in 1982, the Biblical Institute in 1989, and the Education Center in 2010.