Brown Chapel A.M.E. Church

Brown A.M.E. Chapel served as a safe haven for supporters during the voting rights campaign. Pastor P.H. Lewis and his congregation broke the injunction prohibiting African Americans from holding mass meetings, making the church a gathering place for protestors and organizers. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke here on January 2, 1965, and urged black citizens to exercise their right to vote. In the following weeks, registrants lined up outside the Dallas County Courthouse, and when Sheriff Jim Clark repeatedly turned them away, they returned to Brown Chapel for protection, meals, prayer, and encouragement. Its Romanesque towers became a symbol of the voting rights movement, even beyond Selma.

Selma, Alabama · United States