Colored Masonic Temple

Colored Masonic Temple. Destination. Built 1922, 1630 4th Ave. N. , Built and designed by African Americans, the Colored Masonic Temple served as their only major business and social meeting place for decades. The Temple's gilded auditorium hosted many elegant social functions of Birmingham's Black populace. Its office spaces headquartered the Black Masons, allied fraternal groups, and labor unions. The Temple once served as the headquarters for the Southern Negro Youth Congress (SNYC). It housed the offices of Black professionals, including civil rights attorneys Orzell Billingsley and Arthur Shores. From 1951 to 1956, it housed the local and regional offices of the NAACP until legal pressures from state officials forced them to close. But the closure birthed the ACMHR. And voter registration continued under NAACP state and national leader W.C. Patton, pictured here. He had formed the Alabama State Coordinating Association for Registration and Voting in 1952; its office was on the Temple's ninth floor. Despite violence against NAACP leaders, Patton courageously organized grassroots campaigns that registered more than one million voters nationwide. This building is one of the remaining structures in the Historic Fourth Avenue District, which is on the National Register of Historic Places. , “My job was to incite people to become registered voters." , W.C. Patton , Voting Rights Pioneer and Voting Rights Activist. , Lesson C16: Read reporter Anne Ruisi's "Masonic Temple Preservationists" in the Birmingham News/AL.com.