Click image to enlarge. One of only a handful of existing churches in downtown Montgomery that played a significant role in the Civil Rights Movement, the Mount Zion A.M.E. Zion Church, located at the corner of Holt and Stone Streets, is undergoing the slow process of demolition by neglect, as is much of the neighborhood around it. One of the oldest African American communities in Montgomery, the area was once a bustling business and residential district whose residents were at the forefront of the Civil Rights Movement. In 1955, under the leadership of Rev. L. Roy Bennett, the Mount Zion Church became the birthplace of the Montgomery Improvement Association, a group that played a leading role in the organization of the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
The church building was constructed in 1899 by the Mount Zion congregation, a group originally organized in a log cabin in 1866. A Victorian Gothic Neo-Classical facade with twin towers was added to the front in 1921. In recent years, out-migration has diminished the population of this African American neighborhood, and in 1990 the Mount Zion congregation built a new sanctuary across town. Their old church was abandoned to the elements and to vandals. Preservationists, however, see the historic church, one that played a pivotal role in one of the most important social movements of the twentieth century, as the centerpiece for a revitalized neighborhood.
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