Historic St. Joseph African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Church in Durham, North Carolina, was the home of a congregation founded soon after the Civil War that shaped the lives of the city's Black residents — and, in the 1900s, became a meeting ground for Durham's civil rights movement. It joined the African American Civil Rights Network in 2024.
Founding
| Year | |
|---|---|
| 1869 | Rev. Edian Markum and six others found Union Bethel A.M.E. Church, named for the first A.M.E. church, in Philadelphia. The pastor soon opens one of Durham's earliest schools for African Americans in the small building |
| 1892 | the congregation begins a new church and takes the name St. Joseph A.M.E. Church |
The church helped anchor Hayti, a large and thriving community at the center of African American life in Durham. By the 1950s, thousands of Black residents and many businesses called Hayti home.
A meeting place for the movement
As the movement gathered strength in the 1950s, St. Joseph's members joined campaigns of coordinated civil disobedience and legal action against racial, political, economic and social injustice. Through marches, pickets, sit-ins and boycotts, protesters demanded the desegregation of city departments and services — hospitals, schools, libraries, recreation — and of private businesses such as stores, restaurants, hotels and motels, and pressed employers to hire African American workers.
| Year | At St. Joseph's |
|---|---|
| 1954 | the Durham Committee on Negro Affairs holds mass meetings for school desegregation, voter registration, fair employment and a new fire station for Hayti |
| The next year | the church hosts the opening meeting of the North Carolina NAACP annual convention |
| 1957 | on the third anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, the Durham Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance meets there to rally support for school desegregation and equal rights |
Urban renewal, and survival
From the late 1950s, interstate construction and urban renewal devastated Hayti. The congregation moved to a new building in the mid-1970s, but the old church escaped demolition. Today it is cared for by the St. Joseph's Historic Foundation and houses the Hayti Heritage Center.
The African American Civil Rights Network
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 "Historic St. Joseph African Methodist Episcopal Church (Durham, North Carolina)," African American Civil Rights Network, National Park Service; a work of the United States government in the public domain.
Licence: CC0 1.0 (public domain) · Adapted from www.nps.gov
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