First Ebenezer Baptist Church

A handful of enslaved people began this congregation by gathering for services on the Rhodes Plantation in August 1812. In 1851, Absalom A. Rhodes sold a quarter acre of land here for two dollars to the deacon board of Ebenezer Baptist Church. The fifty-six-member congregation joined the Georgia Baptist Association in 1867. First Ebenezer's leadership in the Association was paramount in forming the Missionary Baptist Convention of Georgia, the first African-American convention. Two new congregations sprang from First Ebenezer: Second Ebenezer Baptist Church and Spring Grove Baptist Church.

Hephzibah, Georgia · United States