Trinity A. M. E. Church / Trinity A. M. E. Church

Trinity African Methodist Episcopal Church of Lansing is the oldest black church in the city. Its first services were held in a building on North Washington Avenue. The church, formally organized by the Reverend Mr. Henderson of the British Methodist Episcopal Church in 1866, was first called the Independent Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1875 it was reorganized as Bethel A.M.E. Church. In 1902, upon the death of the Reverend George R. Collins, the pastor for many years, the church was renamed the George R. Collins A.M.E. Church. It was incorporated in 1906. The church received its present name, Trinity A.M.E. Church, in 1964. During the church’s first decade, the congregation purchased a small frame building and moved it to a site on the 100 block of North Pine Street. In 1877 a modest brick church was erected near the original site. It served the congregation for eighty-eight years. In 1965 the congregation was forced to relocate to make room for the State Capitol Complex building project. Selling its downtown property to the state, Ingham County’s oldest black congregation then moved to this ten-acre tract, where it built a church and a parsonage. Starting with twenty-one members, the church had over four hundred members by its one hundredth anniversary in 1966.