African Baptist Church began in 1852 with a group of enslaved Christians and became famous as the church of Booker T. Washington. During the Civil War, Pastor Lewis Rice organized it into one of the nation's first churches started and completely controlled by slaves. In freedom, its members formed the State's first Black Baptist Church and the State's second school for Blacks. In 1872, they purchased this property and later constructed this building, which stands as a rare icon of success for the Reconstruction Era.