St. John Baptist Church

St. John Baptist Church is a Tennessee historical marker in Shelby County.

640 Vance Ave

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St. John Baptist Church was founded in 1868 by the Rev. George J. Mosby and several persons formerly enslaved. After several relocations, the Rev. Alexander McEwen Williams, a former member of the National Baptist Convention's Sunday School Publishing Board, Dr. Ransom Q. Venson, founder of the Cotton Makers' Jubilee (an event of pride and protest against Jim Crow segregation), and the members opened the doors at current location on May 10, 1953. Notable member WDIA's Rufus Thomas. America's "oldest teenager" and co-worker, Nat D. Williams, the first Black disc jockey in the South, taught Sunday School here and was a history teacher and mentor

TodayHistorical map

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Barry Lawrence Ruderman Map Collection, Stanford Libraries

Historical maps covering this location

1855 · Arkansas (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
1859 · Arkansas (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
1862 · Johnson's Kentucky & Tennessee (1862) (Barry Lawrence Ruderman Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
1886 · Arkansas. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
1901 · Memphis. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)

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Marker text and location from the Tennessee Historical Commission, as the Commission publishes them on its marker map.

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