Zion Baptist Church is located at 2215 Grant Street in the
Near North Side neighborhood of
Omaha
Omaha ( ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Nebraska and the county seat of Douglas County. Omaha is in the Midwestern United States on the Missouri River, about north of the mouth of the Platte River. The nation's 39th-largest city ...
,
Nebraska
Nebraska () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by South Dakota to the north; Iowa to the east and Missouri to the southeast, both across the Missouri River; Kansas to the south; Colorado to the southwe ...
. The congregation is among the oldest in Nebraska, and has been instrumental for responding to much of the
racial tension in Omaha.
History
Founded in 1884, the congregation became the city's largest African American church by the first decade of the 20th century. An incorporation of the church was announced in 1888, the incorporaters were Dr.
W. H. C. Stephenson, W. Whitefield, S. H. Baxter, G. W. Kellog, R. Plenix, G. Young, A. Chapman, and D. A. Thomas. The present building was designed by
Clarence W. Wigington and built in the wake of the
Easter Sunday Tornado of 1913
The tornado outbreak sequence of March 1913 was a devastating series of tornado outbreaks that affected the northern Great Plains, the Southern United States, and sections of the upper Midwest over a two-day-long period between March 21–23, ...
. Zion was integral to the community mobilization that happened previous to and following the
Omaha Race Riot of 1919
The Omaha Race Riot occurred in Omaha, Nebraska, September 28–29, 1919. The race riot resulted in the lynching of Will Brown, a black civilian; the death of two white rioters; the injuries of many Omaha Police Department officers and civ ...
. The local chapter of the
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E. ...
met there repeatedly to call on local civic leaders to respond appropriately to the violence vetted towards the community, but to no avail.
[Seligmann, H.J. (1920) ''The Negro Faces America.'' Harper & Brothers. p 156.]
See also
*
History of North Omaha, Nebraska
North Omaha, Nebraska has a recorded history spanning over 200 years, pre-dating the rest of Omaha, encompassing wildcat banks, ethnic enclaves, race riots and social change. North Omaha has roots back to 1812 and the founding of Fort Lisa. It in ...
*
African Americans in Omaha, Nebraska
African Americans in Omaha, Nebraska are central to the development and growth of the 43rd largest city in the United States. The first free black settler in the city arrived in 1854, the year the city was incorporated.Pipher, M. (2002"Chapter ...
*
Racial tension in Omaha, Nebraska
Racial tension in Omaha, Nebraska occurred mostly because of the city's volatile mixture of high numbers of new immigrants from southern and eastern Europe and African-American migrants from the Deep South. While racial discrimination existed at ...
References
External links
Zion Baptist Churchwebsite.
"A history of Zion Baptist Church"by Adam Fletcher Sasse for NorthOmahaHistory.com
Landmarks in North Omaha, Nebraska
History of North Omaha, Nebraska
Baptist churches in Nebraska
Churches in Omaha, Nebraska
African-American history in Omaha, Nebraska
Religious organizations established in 1884
Clarence W. Wigington church buildings
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