In 1867, several of Rockville's African American families left Jerusalem Methodist Episcopal Church to start the African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Zion Church under the leadership of Reverend Charles Pipkins. In 1890, Pipkins and his congregation cut timbers and erected a frame church on Middle Lane. The church had an auxiliary building identified on an 1892 map as the Ethiopian Hall, an early reference to Ethiopianism, a movement that later influenced the development of Rastafarianism. In 1904, the congregation moved to a brick church located on North Washington Street and today's Beall Avenue. The church was named Clinton A.M.E. Zion in honor of Reverend George Wylie Clinton (1859-1921), a prominent member and editor of the church's periodical, Star of Zion. The congregation sold the brick church in 1955 to make way for a shopping center, dedicating their present church on Elizabeth Avenue in Lincoln Park in the fall of 1956.
