Birmingham Churches and their Cornerstones 84

In the 1930s there were Methodist churcbes belonging to two different denominations on Birmingham’s 6th Avenue North. With the 1939 reunion of the three denominations, both became part of the Methodist Church.. But they remained part of separate annual conferences until after the 1968 formation of the United Methodist Church.

The western most of these three churches is St. Paul United Methodist Episcopal Church. It was founded by the Methodist Episcopal Church to serve African Americans in Birmingham. The church’s history states that it was organized in 1869. That is two years before the city itself was organized in late 1871. Most of the city’s “first churches” were founded in 1872, so St. Paul is among the oldest.

Construction of the present building began in 1925, but was delayed by the Great Depression and the Second World War and so not dedicated until 1951. The cornerstone is dated 1950. The church played an important role in the twentieth-century struggle for civil rights and is part of the Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument.

The J. W. E. Bowen named as resident bishop on the stone was the son of John Wesley Edward Bowen (1855-1933) who in 1887 became the first African American to receive a Ph.D. from Boston University. He taught at Gammon Theological Seminary in Atlanta from 1893 to 1926. Bishop Bowen was elected in 1848 and served the Central Alabama Conference of the Methodist Church, the unit within the denomination for African Americans in Alabama and West Florida.

Read this first post for more on this series on Birmingham churches and their cornerstones.

Map of Posts in this Project

Each site in this project is mapped below. Clicking on an icon will bring up a box with a link to the post on the site. Please use it to browse the collection.

The color and shape of the location markers indicate the character of the cornerstones at each site. Stones like this with multiple names are red. If there is more than one stone at the site, a shape is used. Click here for full information on the icons.