Miami Shores Community Church, a member of the United Church of Christ and the oldest church in Miami Shores, occupies a building erected by the Shoreland Company in 1925 as a pump house and fire station, converted to a community house in 1930, entered by the church in 1933, and purchased in 1942. In February 1949, the church board and Rev. Donald Douds invited Rev. Edward T. Graham, a Black minister, to preach for Brotherhood Week, provoking controversy in segregated South Florida during the Jim Crow era, including threats of violence against both ministers, the burning of two crosses on the church grounds, and another at Rev. Graham’s house in Miami. Rev. Graham later became a noted Civil Rights activist, and the incident led the City of Miami to pass an ordinance banning the burning of crosses. The church built its current sanctuary in 1950, added a two-story secular school annex in 1953, and in 2011 its congregation voted to become open and affirming, welcoming persons of all sexual orientations and gender identities as part of its continuing commitment to social justice.