White Rock Baptist Church was founded in 1866. The congregation first met in the home of Margaret Ruffin Faucette in Durham's
Hayti neighborhood. The Reverends Zuck Horton and Samuel Daddy Hunt were the first ministers to lead the congregation. Dr. Augustus Shepard, father of
Dr. James E. Shepard, founder of
North Carolina Central University led the congregation between 1901 and 1911. A number of prominent African American citizens were members of White Rock Baptist Church, including Asa and Edna Spaulding, parents of Asa T. Spaulding Jr., and
Dr. Aaron Moore. Dr. Moore donated funds for a Sunday School building and started a library in the church's basement, which would later become the Durham Colored Library and then the Stanford L. Warren Public Library. In 1960, just after the start of the
sit-in movement at the Woolworth store in Greensboro, North Carolina,
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave a speech titled "A Creative Protest" at White Rock Baptist Church to a crowd estimated at 1,200. King made five appearances in Durham. The original church building was demolished to make way for the
Durham Freeway, and a new building was constructed further south on Fayetteville Street with the congregation moving in in 1977. == References ==