Jerusalem Missionary Baptist Church

Jerusalem Missionary Baptist Church, established in 1899, shaped religious and cultural life in Memphis, from its original West Dodd Street site and later from its present site on West Shelby Drive, built in the 1950s. Members marched in the 1968 Sanitation Workers’ Strike and attended the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “Mountaintop” speech at Mason Temple. Pastor Gifton H. Jones Jr., and Deacon Eddie Smith supported the 1990s landmark lawsuit of African American farmers against discriminatory practices by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Decades of spiritual leadership and social empowerment have left lasting changes in the community.