Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church

The story

Written by AI from this property's National Register nomination and the record above; every sentence is checked against its sources before it appears here. Corrections: privacy@treealive.com

Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church is a church building at 528 W. Jackson St. in Pensacola, Escambia County. It was built in 1918, completed and occupied in 1919, and designed by Wallace Augustus Rayfield in the Eclectic style. It was listed in the National Register in 2013.

Why it's listed

It is listed under criteria A, B, C and D, with local-level significance in social history and Black ethnic heritage. Its period of significance runs from 1918, when the church was built, to 1963.

Physical character

The church has smooth white concrete stucco walls on a stucco foundation, a castellated top, and a stepped Mission Style parapet. The roof is cross-gabled, and its windows are semicircular with arched transoms and keystones; inside, a raised chancel and balcony are reached by spiral stairs above a concrete floor. In 1984 the church added stained glass windows, an education wing, and moved its baptistery from beneath the floor to behind the altar.

Historical context

The congregation began in 1880 and called the Reverend James Banks as pastor in 1881. Raymond A. Cromwell, called as pastor in 1941, proposed a lawsuit in 1944 that the congregation financed, and in 1945 the Florida Supreme Court struck down the all-white Democratic primary.