Second Baptist Church (Los Angeles)


Second Baptist Church is a historically African-American Baptist church located in South Los Angeles, California. The current Lombardy Romanesque Revival building was built in 1926 and has been listed as a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument and on the National Register of Historic Places. The church has been an important force in the Civil Rights Movement, hosting national conventions of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored Persons in 1928, 1942, and 1949, and also serving as the site of important speeches by Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and others. It is affiliated with the American Baptist Churches USA and the Progressive National Baptist Convention.

Church building

The Second Baptist Church occupies a Lombardy Romanesque Revival church structure located along 24th Street to the west of Central Avenue. The structure was built in 1926 at a total cost of approximately $175,000, including the land, building and furnishings. The structure was designed by African-American architect Paul R. Williams in collaboration with Norman Marsh. The church building opened in January 1926 with seating for more than 2,000 persons. The church's pastor at the time the church was built was Dr. Thomas L. Griffith, who served in that position from 1921 to 1941.
According to a history of the church, the congregation's leaders acquired the property on which the current structure sits after hiring a real estate agent "who was very light in complexion." The leaders were reportedly concerned that white property owners may not sell to an African-American organization and hoped that the white owners would be more inclined to sell to a light-skinned agent who appeared to be "a member of their racial group."

Historical significance

Wed, 1885-05-13
On May 13, 1885, Second Baptist Church, the first African American Baptist Church in Southern California, was organized in Los Angeles. Second Baptist Church was born in the minds and hearts of early African-American Baptists in Los Angeles who felt the need to have their own church where the free expression of worship in the black idiom could flow uninhibited. Of the three persons who started the church only the name of the first pastor is remembered, Reverend S.C. Pierce. Rev. Pierce organized Second Baptist Church and ministered there for two years.
The Second Baptist Church building was listed as a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument in 1978 and on the National Register of Historic Places in 2009. The Central Avenue Corridor became the cultural and business hub of the African-American community in Los Angeles from the 1920s to the 1950s. The Second Baptist Church building, located one block west of Central Avenue at 24th Street, was deemed to satisfy the registration requirements set forth in the Multiple Property Submission for African-Americans in Los Angeles. Other sites listed pursuant to the same Multiple Property Submission include the Lincoln Theater, the 27th Street Historic District, the 28th Street YMCA, the Prince Hall Masonic Temple, 52nd Place Historic District, and two historic all-black segregated fire stations.
Among the historic institutions along the Central Avenue Corridor, the Second Baptist Church played a particularly vital role in the Civil Rights Movement. With a seating capacity in excess of 2,000 persons, the church was the largest meeting space owned by the African-American community in the western United States in the era before World War II. The church hosted the national convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People on three occasions—1928, 1942, and 1949. When the NAACP convention came to Second Baptist in 1928, it was the first time that the NAACP held its national convention in the western United States. Prominent speakers in the early years of the church included writer W. E. B. Du Bois and poet Alice Dunbar Nelson.
The congregation was also active in campaigns against racial discrimination in housing, public beaches, swimming pools, and restaurants. In 1954, the congregation contributed $1,500 to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund to print the briefs used in the United States Supreme Court case, Brown v. Board of Education. The church also provided scholarship funds to enable future Nobel Peace Prize winner Ralph Bunche to attend the University of California, Los Angeles. It was also "the West Coast 'home'" for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who spoke at Second Baptist on many occasions from May 1956 to March 1968. Other noted persons to speak at Second Baptist include Malcolm X, who delivered an impassioned speech at the church in May 1962 after several Muslims were shot in a gun battle with police in front of the Muslim Temple, and Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.

Changing demographics

In recent decades, the demographics of the neighborhood surrounding Second Baptist Church has changed from an overwhelmingly African-American community to one that, as of 2007, was 40% African American and more than 50% Latino. The demographic change saw many of Second Baptist's members move to other areas of the city. However, the pastor, Rev. William Epps, opted to keep Second Baptist in the building it has occupied since 1926. Although the church remains predominantly African-American, the church's nursery school as of 2007 was 98% Latino. Second Baptist has also rented its sanctuary to Spanish-speaking Protestant congregations for services.

Selected chronology

The following is a list of some of the important speeches and other milestone events in the history of the Second Baptist Church.

1920s and 1930s