Birmingham Churches and Their Cornerstones 22
The historic building of the First Baptist Church of Kingston at 4600 9th Avenue North is on the National Register of Historic Places because it served as a mass meeting church for the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights during the mid-twentieth-century civil rights movement. Most significant was a meeting at the church on May 15, 1981 after a mob attacked Freedom Riders at the Trailways station in downtown Birmingham.
During the late 1950s the owner-occupied homes surrounding the church were replaced by a public housing project now known as Rev. Dr Morrell Todd Homes. The church which had been rebuilt in 1951 was allowed to stand. First Baptist moved to a new building a four blocks west on 9th Avenue in 2000 and sold this building to Lighthouse Church Ministries in 2001.
The building was added to the National Register in 2005. The cornerstones are on the side of the church and one is obscured by a hand rail.
This dating on the stone is a good testimony that whereas at one point cornerstones were actually laid during the construction of the building, this type of cornerstone (perhaps better called a “date stone” was often added after the building was complete.
Read this first post for more on this series on Birmingham churches and their cornerstones.
Chasing Churches 
[…] leaders did not want what they regarded as an eye-sore to great visitors entering the city. As in Kingston, it was the churches that remain. Two of them sit across 42nd Place North from each other. The […]
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