Brown Chapel A.M.E. Church!

What Is the Brown Chapel A.M.E. Church?

The Brown Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church was the starting point for the historic voting rights marches in 1965!

What Makes It Historical?

The congregation of the Brown Chapel A.M.E. Church began in the basements of Selma in 1866, first private basements then the basement of the Albert Hotel, until the A.M.E. Convention admitted them in 1867! The first bishop here was Bishop John Mifflin Brown, whose name you’ll recognize in Brown Chapel, and the first actual church went up here in 1869!

The current church, designed in Romanesque Revival style by A.J. Farley, became the hub for planning the voting rights campaign of 1965. That’s because only about 1% of voting age Black people in Selma were registered to vote, thanks to poll taxes, literacy tests, and intimidation! Churches were also useful loopholes in statewide bans on Black folks gathering in large numbers! Here, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. set up his headquarters and addressed a crowd of 700 on January 2, 1965. From here began two marches to the Dallas County Courthouse to register folks to vote, both of which were thwarted by the sheriff’s department!

But it was the three March marches that made this starting line so important. On March 7, the first 500 protestors left the Brown Chapel A.M.E. Church for Montgomery, but were beaten and chased back here by the sheriff’s department, making this Bloody Sunday! On March 8, while waiting for a court’s decision to restrain state troopers from interfering, a symbolic march went from the church to the end of the Edmund Pettus Bridge and turned around. It wasn’t until March 21, 1965 that the marchers, under protection of the national guard, could cross out of Selma and continue their journey to the capitol!

How Can I #HelpTheHelpers?

Become a member of the National Voting Rights Museum and Institute!
Donate to the Brown Chapel A.M.E. Church!
Be a responsible visitor! Please respect the signs and pathways, and treat all structures and artifacts with respect. They’ve endured a lot to survive into the present. They’ll need our help to make it into the future!