Hermon Presbyterian Church, Rock Hill, South Carolina

In 1869, forty-one African American women and men left the white Presbyterian churches of Rock Hill, South Carolina, and founded Hermon Presbyterian Church. For several years the congregation met in rented rooms. By 1886 it was running a school for young children. In 1895 it bought land for a church; two years later work began on a Late Gothic Revival building, with church members doing much of the labour, and it was finished in 1903.

A centre of the civil rights movement

Hermon Presbyterian played a major part in Rock Hill's civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s, driven in large part by its pastor, the Reverend Cecil A. Ivory. From 1953 Ivory was president of the local branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

• 1957 bus boycott. After a white bus driver mistreated a young Black woman, Ivory called a mass meeting at Hermon Presbyterian and, with others, organised a boycott of the buses.
• 1960 sit-ins. Ivory helped organise, and joined, lunch counter sit-ins and other demonstrations with local college students.
• 1961 Freedom Riders. In May 1961, Freedom Riders reached Rock Hill after passing safely through Virginia and North Carolina. Three of them, John Lewis among them, were attacked and beaten by white counter-protesters. Ivory and others rescued them and took them to a local college and to the Hermon Presbyterian parsonage, where they were given a meal.

The African American Civil Rights Network

Hermon Presbyterian Church joined the African American Civil Rights Network in 2023. Created by the African American Civil Rights Act of 2017 and coordinated by the National Park Service, the network recognises the civil rights movement in the United States and the sacrifices of those who fought discrimination and segregation. It tells the stories of the movement's people, places and events through a collection of public and private properties, facilities and programs.

Sources

Based on "Hermon Presbyterian Church (Rock Hill, South Carolina)," published by the National Park Service, African American Civil Rights Network; rewritten in hubnx's own words.