Churches in the St. Catherine Street Neighborhood

Churches in the St. Catherine Street Neighborhood. Natchez Trails. , The original appearance of Mt. Sinai Baptist Church is visible in a ca. 1930 historic photograph. The church featured corner towers crowned with domes.

Mt. Sinai organized in 1913 and built the church soon afterwards. Like most historic African American wood churches, Mt. Sinai was later brick-veneered.

Standing in front of Mt. Sinai in Brumfield High School band director Woodrick McGuire who died in the 1940 Rhythm Night Club fire. McGuire lived across the street in the Wheaton-McGuire House. ,

, Zion A.M.E. Church No. 2 at 7 Quitman Street was originally a mission church built by Zion Chapel A.M.E. (African Methodist Episcopal) Church, which also operated Ward's Academy on the same site.

The church with its twin towers and recessed entry porch is typical of many of the historic wood African American churches like China Grove Baptist Church on St. Catherine featured a single tower.

Zion Chapel A.M.E. Church No. 2 is today the most architecturally significant of the historic African American wood churches because it is the only one that retains its original architectural character and detail. Most of the others have been veneered in brick.

Today "Little Zion" as it is sometimes called, is home to Christ Community Church, one of a growing number of non-denominational churches in the community. ,

, Civil Rights activist Medgar Evers, martyred in Jackson in 1963, stands at the pulpit of Zion Chapel A.M.E. Church (above) at 228 North Martin Luther King Street. Evers served as the Mississippi Field Secretary for the NAACP.

The Civil Rights Movement was closely linked to black churches. Since African Americans were denied access to most places of public accommodation prior to the 1964 Civil Rights Act, churches were the focus not only of their religious lives but also of their social and political lives.

NAACP meetings moved randomly from church to church to confuse the Ku Klux Klan. Many of the churches in the St. Catherine Street neighborhood hosted meetings of the NAACP in the 1960s, and Shiloh Baptist Church was the site of mass meetings. ,

, The Reverend Jacob Henry Murray, pictured above right with his wife Donettia, oversaw construction of the first building of the Church of God in Christ on Perrault Street about 1921. He led the church until his death in 1969.

A pillar of the church was esteemed Natchez educator Freddie Johnson, pictured above with his young son Freddie, Jr., in front of the original church building. Johnson marrieed Reverend Murray's daughter Leola.

A World War II veteran, Freddie Johnson served the students of Adams County as a teacher and principal at Brumfield, Sadie V. Thompson, Northside and at Anchorage (later North Natchez) schools.

James Murray, son of Jacob Henry Murray, was pastor when the congregation built the new church on Perrault Street.,

The Churches , China Grove Baptist Church , 105 St. Catherine Street

Church of God in Christ , 10 Perrault Street

Mt. Bethel Baptist Church , 32 Brenham Avenue

Mt. Sinai Baptist Church , 170 St. Catherine Street

Shiloh Baptist Church , 11 Perrault Street

Zion A.M.E. Church No. 2 , 7 Quitman Street

Holy Family Catholic Church , 30 St. Catherine Street

Zion Chapel A.M.E. Church , 228 N. Martin Luther King , Street

Pleasant Green Baptist Church , 201 East Franklin Street.