Mount Zion Baptist Church - A Debt Paid in Full
A stop on Greenwood: Tulsa's Black Wall Street, a free self-guided tour.
Mount Zion's congregation had saved for years to build a grand brick church. They held their first service in it on April 4, 1921. Less than two months later, on June 1, the massacre left it a burned shell.
The church's insurance had a riot clause, so the loss was not covered. What remained was a mortgage of about $50,000. The congregation could have walked away from the debt. Instead they chose to pay it, a decision that strained the church but became a point of pride, and the debt was cleared around 1942.
Only then could they build again. The present church, designed in a Gothic Revival style with architects W.S. and J.C. Latimer, rose on the original site and was dedicated in 1952.
Stand in front and look at the building as a promise kept over thirty years.
Getting here: Walk west from the Cultural Center to North Elgin Avenue and turn north to the church at 419 North Elgin.
Did you know?: The congregation spent about 21 years paying off the mortgage on a church that stood for less than two months.
Photo op: From across Elgin Avenue, frame the church's front and its pointed Gothic windows.
More on Wikipedia: Mount Zion Baptist Church · Tulsa race massacre
Stops on this tour
- Greenwood Rising - Where Black Wall Street Began
- Deep Greenwood - Plaques Underfoot
- I-244 Overpass - The Second Destruction
- Vernon AME Church - The Basement That Survived
- Greenwood Cultural Center - Keeping the Memory
- Black Wall Street Memorial - Names That Remain
- Mount Zion Baptist Church - A Debt Paid in Full
- Reconciliation Park - Hostility, Humiliation, Hope
- Pathway to Hope - Stitching Greenwood Back Together
- Oaklawn Cemetery - The Search for the Missing