Birmingham Churches and Their Cornerstones 60

This small but elegant colonial revival building was erected in 1958 as the home of St. James Methodist Church at 701 11th Court West in Birmingham’s East Thomas neighborhood. At the time of its erection, the church was part of the Central Alabama Conference of the Methodist Church. This conference was created in 1876 for African American churches within the “Northern” Methodist Episcopal Church. When three Methodist demoninations reunited in 1939 to form the Methodist Church, this conference, and other African American conferences and churches, were placed in the Central Jurisdiction, a national unit that was separate from the white regional jurisdictions. In 1968 when the United Methodist Church was formed, this segregated structure was disbanded and St. James and other African American Methodist Churches became part of the North Alabama Conference. From that date until it closed, it would be known as St. James United Methodist Church.

The handsome Alabama marble cornerstone compliments the building and speaks to the congregation’s pride in this structure. It states that the congregation was established in 1905. Denominational records indicated that through at least 1926 the congregation was known as East Thomas Methodist Episcopal Church. East Thomas was an African American neighborhood. By 2014 this property was sold to Cornerstone Word of Faith Ministries, Inc., its present owners.

The back of the lot boarders the off-ramp of Interstate 65 that westbound travelers use when traveling to Birmingham-Southern College, North Alabama United Methodists’ flagship institution. Naturally, the insertion of the interstate through the neighborhood aided its decline as a residential community.

Read this first post for more on this series on Birmingham churches and their cornerstones.

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