Tabernacle Baptist Church, Augusta, Georgia

Tabernacle Baptist Church in Augusta, Georgia, was organized in August 1885 as Beaulah Baptist Church; within a few days the congregation voted to take the name Tabernacle. Work on the sanctuary began in September 1885 and was finished by December. Under its founding pastor, Rev. Charles T. Walker, the church grew quickly.

Rev. Charles T. Walker

From the church's founding until his death in 1921, Walker was a leading figure in Augusta's African American civic life.

• He was central to establishing Walker Baptist Institute, a high school and teachers' college for African Americans named for Rev. Joseph T. Walker. At his urging, the school moved from Waynesboro, Georgia, to Augusta in 1891.
• In 1898 he briefly served as a chaplain in the Spanish-American War.
• He then moved to New York City, where he pastored a church and helped found the city's first African American branch of the YMCA, before returning to Tabernacle.
• A celebrated orator, he was called the "most famous negro preacher in the world." Booker T. Washington, George Washington Carver, President Taft and John D. Rockefeller all came to the church to hear him.

The civil rights years

Tabernacle remained central to the community after Walker's death, and played an important part in Augusta's civil rights movement under Rev. Charles Spencer Hamilton. In the 1960s the church:

• helped organize students from Paine College, a historically Black university in Augusta, for sit-ins;
• hosted Martin Luther King Jr.;
• held mass rallies and nonviolent strategy meetings.

The African American Civil Rights Network

Tabernacle Baptist Church joined the African American Civil Rights Network in 2024. Created by the African American Civil Rights Act of 2017 and coordinated by the National Park Service, the network recognizes the movement and the sacrifices of those who fought discrimination and segregation, telling its stories through public and private properties, facilities and programs.

Sources

Based on "Tabernacle Baptist Church (Augusta, Georgia)," African American Civil Rights Network, National Park Service; a work of the United States government in the public domain.