Mount Zion Baptist Church

Mount Zion Baptist Church is a historically significant church in the Greenwood District of Tulsa, Oklahoma. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on September 5, 2008. The original building was burned during the Tulsa Race Riot on June 1, 1921. According to the Tulsa Preservation Commission, "... Mount Zion Baptist Church remains a testimony to the perseverance and tenacity of its congregants and the black community in Greenwood." The church building was rebuilt in 1952 on its original site.HistoryGenesisIn 1909, a religious study group led by Reverend Sandy Lyons organized the Second Baptist Church in a school in the 300 block of North Hartford in Tulsa. The group soon renamed their church as Mount Zion Baptist Church, bought a lot at 419 North Elgin and began planning to raise money for a permanent church building. Reverend R. A. Whitaker became pastor in 1914. About this time, the landlord of their rented building told the congregation that it was no longer available to them and gave them three days to move. The congregation moved to temporary quarters in a former dance hall on North Greenwood Avenue.Reverend Whitaker led a campaign that raised $42,000 toward a permanent facility, far short of the estimated cost of $92,000. A local Jewish contractor offered an unsecured loan of $50,000. This enabled construction to begin in 1916. Completion took five years, and the first service was held in the new building on April 4, 1921.DestructionThe Tulsa Race Riot broke out on the night of May 31 - June 1, 1921. The new Mount Zion Baptist Church was deliberately burned by a mob of white men, who had heard a rumor that blacks were using the building to store rifles that had been brought there in caskets. No evidence of such storage ever surfaced. However, it was true that some armed blacks used the structure as a vantage point for firing on rioters that were attacking nearby houses. The whites could not dislodge the blacks until some local guardsmen brought up a truck with a machine gun and opened fire. This more powerful weaponry began knocking bricks out of the building, and it was soon in flames.