St. Louis Street Missionary Baptist Church was organized in 1853 by ten African-Americans who had been members of Stone Street Baptist Church, and it is the second oldest Missionary Baptist Church in Alabama. Its first three pastors were Caucasian, but after the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865, the church installed its first black pastor, Rev. C.A. Levins. In 1869, the Board of School Commissioners established a school in the church basement to educate colored children. During the Seventh Session of the Colored Baptist Convention held there in 1874, a resolution established Alabama's first black theological school, which later became Selma University. The present structure was built in 1872, renovated in 1897, and listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.