Mount Zion Baptist Church

Mount Zion Baptist Church. Fredericksburg: Timeless.. , "The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy." , , Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Toward the end of the nineteenth century, Virginia and other Southern states continued to segregated social and political life along racial lines. New laws imposed poll taxes and literacy tests, creating hurdles to African American voting and also curtailing the rights of poor whites. Between 1900 and 1902, African American voter registration in Fredericksburg dropped from 353 to 65. White voter registration dropped from 998 to 681. The era of Jim Crow had arrived and effectively disenfranchised 45 percent of the local electorate., As segregation became increasingly systematic, Mount Zion Baptist Church maintained the tradition of church leadership in the African American community. It joined both Shiloh Baptist Churches (Old Site and New Site) in allowing their sanctuaries to be used for political meetings. In the 1950s and 60s, these institutions participated in the broader civil rights movement, their moral position attracting the critical support of many white citizens. Local leadership helped Fredericksburg avoid the violence of that period., [Captions:] , The Mount Zion Baptist Church was first constructed as a wood frame structure. It was replaced with the current brick sanctuary after a fire in 1925., In 1881, the Reverend Willis M. Robinson became the pastor of Shiloh Baptist Church. He led the congregation that established the Shiloh Baptist Church (New Site) in 1889, and then helped to establish the Mount Zion Baptist Church in 1904.