First Baptist Church

The First Baptist Church on North Ripley Street in Montgomery, Alabama, is a historic landmark. Founded in downtown Montgomery in 1867 as one of the first black churches in the area, it provided an alternative to the second-class treatment and discrimination African-Americans faced at the other First Baptist Church in the city.

In the first few decades after its establishment the First Baptist Church became one of the largest black churches in the South, growing from hundreds of parishioners to thousands. Almost a hundred years later, in the 1950s and 1960s, it was an important gathering place for activities related to the Civil Rights Movement, and became associated with the Montgomery bus boycott and the Freedom Rides of May 1961. The church was listed by the Alabama Historical Commission on the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage on May 5, 2000.