Grace A.M.E. Zion Church
(ca. 1902)
The late Gothic Revival styled Grace A.M.E. Zion Church is the last surviving religious edifice from Charlotte’s historic Brooklyn neighborhood.
219 S Brevard St, Charlotte, NC 28202
Dedicated on July 13, 1902, the Grace A.M.E. Zion Church is one of Charlotte’s oldest Black churches and the only surviving religious edifice from the historic Brooklyn neighborhood, once the city’s largest Black residential community. The late Gothic Revival styled edifice was a focal point for religious and social activities for all ages. Its membership included such prominent Black Charlotteans as physician, educator, and U.S. consul to Sierra Leone Dr. John Taylor Williams (1859-1924), businessman and community leader Thad L. Tate (1865-1951), and Charlotte’s first Black architect William W. Smith (1873-1924). At least seven of Grace’s more than thirty-six pastors subsequently became bishops within the A.M.E. Zion Church.
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Grace A.M.E. Zion Church was an offshoot of Clinton Chapel A.M.E. Zion Church, Charlotte’s first Black church. By 1880, Clinton Chapel – located on Mint Street in downtown Charlotte – had a membership of 1,193. Beginning in 1882, however, the Christian Temperance movement began to divide the Clinton Chapel congregation. Facing criticism from a majority of the congregation (including the pastor) over their anti-alcohol views, a small group within the congregation labeled as prohibitionists decided to organize their own separate church. In December 1886, twenty-eight like-minded members (eleven men and seventeen women) met at the North Davidson Street home of Jethro Sumner to draft a letter of withdrawal from Clinton Chapel. The new society adopted the name Grace Chapel, and took as their motto “God, Religion and Temperance.” Grace’s first meeting place was in an Episcopal Church building built as a mission for whites on West Stonewall Street. The new congregation was admitted into the African Methodist Episcopal denomination in early 1887.
Before locating a suitable permanent home, the new congregation met in several different locations, including the mayor’s office (in the old Market House on East Trade Street), the former Samaritan Lodge Hall on East Second Street, and the A.M.E. Zion Publishing House on South College Street. In August 1887, the Grace board of trustees purchased for $600 the South Brevard Street property (then called “B” Street) where the church still stands. Before the present structure was built, the congregation worshipped in a thirty by sixty feet frame building on the site. By the end of the century, the congregation had outgrown that structure and began fundraising for a new brick structure. Construction began in the fall of 1900 under the guidance of Grace member William W. Smith as the building’s designer and general contractor.
In spite of the destruction of Brooklyn during urban renewal of the 1960s, when most of Grace’s parishioners were forced to move to the West Charlotte area, the church and its leadership continue to play a substantial role in the life of the city, and many of the former Second Ward residents continue to identify with Grace A.M.E. Zion Church as part of their Brooklyn heritage.