The church's historic building is located near a newer, modern church. The historic church is located at the southwest corner of 29th Avenue North and 33rd Street North, and its parsonage and guard house located across 29th Avenue North. The church was built in 1926, and is an architecturally eclectic mix of Gothic and Renaissance styles. The guard house and parsonage are vernacular ranch-style houses; the parsonage was built in 1957 as a replacement for the previous parsonage, which had stood next to the church and was destroyed by a bomb in 1956. Fred Shuttlesworth served as pastor from 1953 to 1961. The church buildings were bombed on three separate occasions, first on December 25, 1956, again on June 29, 1958, and lastly on December 14, 1962. The church's complex during the historic events of the 1950s and 1960s, located nearby on 29th Avenue North, was added to the
Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage on November 13, 1996. On January 30, 2008, the US Government submitted it to UNESCO as part of an envisaged future World Heritage nomination (along with the
Dexter Avenue Baptist Church and the
16th Street Baptist Church) and as such it is on the UNESCO 'Tentative List of
World Heritage Sites'. In 1997, the church opened a new building near the historic site. In 2017, the church was included in the newly created
Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument. == See also ==