First Baptist Church (Selma, Alabama)

 African American Civil Rights Movement, Baptist church, Gothic revival (architecture)

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Historic African American Baptist church listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP).

Built: 1894
Architect: Dave Benjamin West
Architectural style: Gothic Revival
Area: less than 1 acre
Date added to NRHP: 9/20/1979
Notes: "[From 1963 to 1965], the church was a focal point of the mass meeting and non-violent teaching sessions sponsored by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and in late 1964, meetings were held in the church to plan the mass rallies and demonstrations of early 1965 which culminated in the Selma-to-Montgomery march. During the early months of 1965, Martin Luther King, Jr., Ralph Abernathy, and other leaders of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, headquartered in Brown's Chapel half a block away, spoke nightly to the youth gathered at First Baptist Church." (taken from the NRHP nomination form)