Centenary United Methodist Church

In 1865 Methodist Episcopal Church North established Centenary school and church in south Memphis. During the 1866 Memphis Massacre, rioters burned Centenary's frame church on South Street, but congregants rebuilt it in 1867. Pastor Dr. H. W. Key, a Union spy during the Civil War and Reconstruction era activist, raised the funds for a brick church in 1907. A new edifice was built on Mississippi Boulevard in 1921, where seven years later members formed Memphis' first African American Boy Scout troop. In 1935, Pastor Dr. H. B. Gibson, led a local fight for voting rights. Continued. Centenary was a Civil Rights Movement center, especially once leading nonviolent strategist, Dr. James M. Lawson, became pastor in 1962. He held workshops and planned marches at the church. The decision to continue James Meredith's march through Mississippi was made at this site. In 1967, the Centenary congregation moved to a new East McLemore Avenue location where Dr. Lawson led the Memphis Sanitation Workers Strike and called on the Rev. Dr. Martin L. King, Jr. to assist. King's assassination in April 1968 brought national attention to Centenary.