Green Street Missionary Baptist Church in Selma Alabama has been serving those that serve the Lord since 1881. Sadly, Green Street's beautiful sanctuary (pictured around the site) has succumbed to time and the elements. Built in 1886 by master craftsmen, this sanctuary was an outstanding example of Romanesque Revival architecture and was an expression of the hopes and dreams of recently liberated African Americans in the Post-Civil War Era.

 

Green Street again served as a source of hope and energy during the Modern American Civil Rights Movement.  Prior to Bloody Sunday, the church served as a mass meeting and organizing space. Then, marchers between Selma and Montgomery were sustained by food coming out of the church’s kitchen. On July 5th, 1964 after the passage of the Civil Rights Act, the Reverend Ralph Abernathy spoke to a large gathering at Green Street. A crowd gathered outside and was deputized by Dallas County Sheriff Jim Clark and attacked the meeting participants as they left the Church.

 

The historic Church is listed on the Alabama Register of Historic Places and was approved to be listed in the proposed United States Department of the Interior’s National Register of Historic Sites new Historic District and on the National Civil Rights Trail.

 

Sanctuary building located at 1220 Green Street Selma, Alabama collapsed this past April 2016. The cause is attributed to the building being weakened by a tornado and delayed maintenance. There were no members in the sanctuary at the time of the building collapse, but the Church area was severely damage and the educational building west wall was demolished because that portion of the building was attached to the Sanctuary.

 

The members of this Church; with limited resources but with great determination, want to preserve their historic legacy and cleanup the site, repair the Education Building, and rebuild with a new Sanctuary. We seek to come back not only as we were, but better than we have ever been. We seek to serve as an anchor of revitalization in our neighborhood and city. Will you join us?