When it comes to Detroit’s most important surviving Black historical landmarks, Second Baptist Church is second to none.
Second Baptist is the first and oldest Black congregation in the state, and played a defining role in the abolitionist and civil-rights movements, helped up to 5,000 enslaved people reach freedom on the Underground Railroad, and pushed for political and social justice and economic mobility for African Americans. It also was the mother church for a number of other Black congregations across the state.
The church traces its origins to March 5, 1836, when 13 formerly enslaved African Americans received permission from Michigan’s Territorial Legislature to form a new congregation, officially named the Society of the Second Baptist Church. It was officially incorporated March 18, 1839. These 13 church founders had left the First Baptist Church because, though allowed to attend services, they were forced to sit in segregated pews and barred from church affairs and weighing in on decisions. Those 13 founders were: Robert Allen, Jacob Brown, William Brown, Daniel Buckman, Richard Evans, George W. and Caroline French, Madison J. and Tabitha Lightfoot, William Charles Monroe, William Nash, Benjamin Reed and Samuel Robinson.
The Society of the Second Baptist Church committed itself not only to the lord but to ending slavery and seeking equality for Black Americans. Its members initially met in the home of Deacon George French and his wife, Caroline French. As membership grew, Second Baptist moved to Liberty Hall, a building on the south side of East Fort Street between St. Antoine and Beaubien streets. The church continued to meet here until the building was destroyed by fire on June 26, 1854, according to “Black Detroit: A People’s History of Self-Determination” by Herb Boyd. While looking for a new permanent home, the church’s members met in a schoolhouse on East Fort Street between Hastings and Rivard streets in the city’s Black Bottom neighborhood.
Second Baptist’s first pastor
At the congregation’s first meeting in 1836, the members elected Monroe as its first pastor. He would set Second Baptist out on its path of not just a place of worship but a force for change, and became a celebrated anti-slavery activist.
Just three years after starting the congregation, in 1839, Second Baptist opened the first school for Black children in Detroit, locating it in the church’s basement. The importance of this cannot be understated, as Black children were denied enrollment at white schools, and were allowed to attend only one, located in the basement of a Black Methodist church. Monroe would also serve as the Second Baptist school’s teacher.
He presided over the first Convention of the Colored Citizens of Michigan on Oct. 26, 1843, held at Second Baptist. The convention met to demand an end to slavery and that the right to vote be extended to Black Americans. Their calls would go unanswered.
Second Baptist would also host meetings of the Colored Vigilant Committee of Detroit, which was founded in 1842 to help protect the Black community. Committee members assisted freedom seekers once they got to Detroit, often hiding them in the basement of Second Baptist.
Monroe also helped found the Canadian Anti-Slavery Baptist Association in 1850, as well as the Amherstburg Baptist Association, another abolitionist organization.
Meanwhile, Monroe and others would involve Second Baptist in the Underground Railroad, eventually helping usher up to 5,000 to freedom in Canada before the Emancipation Proclamation and the end of the Civil War.
Detroit was given the codename “Midnight” on the Underground Railroad because it was the last stop “before freedom dawned,” and for many seeking freedom, Second Baptist was that last stop. The church supplied them with shelter, food and clothing.
One of the main forces behind Second Baptist’s efforts with the Underground Railroad was George DeBaptiste, who had been born free in Virginia and had assisted freedom-seekers in that state as early as 1829. It is believed that he moved to Detroit in 1846 and soon thereafter joined Second Baptist’s efforts.
George DeBaptiste, One of the key figures in transporting freedom seekers across the Detroit River was Second Baptist Church member George DeBaptiste. DeBaptiste managed the transportation of freedom seekers across the river, and often worked in collaboration with former Second Baptist Church member William Lambert, who managed travel through and to Detroit. DeBaptiste was born free in Virginia in 1814, and had a long history of involvement in abolitionist efforts prior to settling in Detroit. DeBaptiste bought a steamboat named the T. Whitney, and used it to shuttle African Americans who had escaped bondage across the Detroit River to freedom in Canada. Before that, they were rowed across in small boats at night to escape detection.
Though Monroe played an important role in establishing Second Baptist and setting it out on its mission of freedom and equality, he would not stay long. In 1846, Monroe and William Lambert, a key player in the city’s Underground Railroad activities, left Second Baptist Church to start the St. Matthew’s Protestant Episcopal Mission. This church, the city’s third Black church, set up shop on the southeast corner of Congress and St. Antoine streets. It’s not clear why Monroe left Second Baptist. Given this new congregation was not Baptist, it could have been his changing beliefs; it could have been him focusing more on activism than worship. Either way, Monroe grew this new flock, even surpassing Second Baptist in size for a time. But following the enactment of the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850, many of its members fled to freedom in Canada. Monroe embraced African Americans leaving the country and moving to Black enclaves of Haiti and Liberia to escape persecution in the U.S. Monroe would move to Liberia himself, in 1859. St. Matthew’s Protestant Episcopal fell apart in his absence and closed in 1864.
Meanwhile, Second Baptist didn’t miss a beat in the absence of its founding pastor. In fact, it was working on continuing what he started by establishing its base of operations at the corner of Monroe Avenue and Beaubien Street in Greektown.
The story of the building itself
Before diving into the lengthy story and many important ways that Second Baptist has contributed to the city and our nation’s history, let’s take a look at the story of the building it calls home.
The church as it stands today is actually made up of four distinct sections and additions that date to 1881, 1913, 1918, 1926 and 1968 - and possibly stretch back as far as 1852. Like the congregation and the city itself, it has grown and changed over the years.
In February 1857, following the fire that destroyed Second Baptist’s home at Liberty Hall, the congregation bought the First German Reformed Zion Church, located at the church’s present site on the northwest corner of Monroe Avenue and Beaubien Street. (At the time, Monroe was known as Croghan Street, which is why Second Baptist was known as the Croghan Street Station on the Underground Railroad.) The original architect of this church is unknown. The German congregation had dedicated the brick church just five years earlier, on April 12, 1852, but had decided to move further east to be closer to the heart of the German-American community. They settled on the east side of Russell Street, between Sherman and Catherine streets (the intersection no longer exists). Second Baptist paid $3,800 for the church, approximately $134,000 in 2025 valuation, when adjusted for inflation. This was not an insignificant sum for the time for such a small congregation, especially when you factor in the discrimination they faced and the relative lack of opportunities available to them. Furthermore, Detroit’s Black population at the time remained small - about only 1,400, or about 3 percent of the city’s 45,600 residents.
To that end, for the first few decades, the congregation worshipped in what it had. But as more Black people moved North in search of work and to escape the Jim Crow laws that had started in the 1870s, Second Baptist’s facilities needed to grow with the size of the congregation. From 1881 to 1890, the church set out on a major effort that saw a second-floor nave added to serve as the sanctuary, the same sanctuary where services are still held today. The architect of this addition is unknown. It also is unknown how much, if any, of the original 1852 church survives under the series of additions and after a series of fires over the years. But it is possible. If it does, those walls would be the second oldest surviving church structures in the city behind Sts. Peter & Paul Jesuit, built just four years earlier.
In 1913, construction was completed on a Tudor Revival-style addition on the south side of the church, significantly altering the appearance of the front of the church and its main entrance. Designed by William E.N. Hunter, a prominent church architect of the time, this work cost about $9,000, or $308,000 in 2025 valuation. It also created a two-story addition with a front gable roof to the main building. In addition to giving the church a new main entrance, it also saw changes to the church’s interior.
The church was to hold a reopening celebration on Easter morning, March 23, 1913, but the morning before, a fire broke out in the loft, damaging much of the work that had just been completed. It was believed that paints left there may have caused spontaneous combustion. “The (fire) department had trouble in reaching the fire as it burned between the walls and on the roof. It is thought that paints left there may have caused spontaneous combustion and started the blaze,” The Detroit News reported March 22, 1913. The loss was thought to be $500, about $17,000 in 2025. The church was back in business by that July, but it would not be the last blaze to threaten the congregation.
On a frigid and windy Jan. 16, 1916, with temperatures reaching 12-below, a fire from an overheated furnace or defective wiring in the basement caused $200 in damage, about $7,000 in 2025. This fire broke out in the middle of services, forcing its 1,100 congregants to escape into the cold. No one was injured.
All of these fires would pale in comparison to a devastating blaze in February 1918 that destroyed much of the church’s new interior. The Detroit News reported Feb. 25 that the “recent” destruction “leaves 3,000 church-going Negroes without a church home. Outside help will be necessary to restore the church as there was little insurance on the burned edifice.”
The Rev. Robert L. Bradby, the church’s pastor at the time, told The News that “the congregation has absolutely no place to go. There is no other Negro church in Detroit that could nearly accommodate the congregation. Every other Negro church is filled to capacity at every service on Sunday.”
Forrester B. Washington, director of the League on Urban Conditions, told The News that “the Second Baptist Church has given the Negro newcomer the spiritual and moral buttress necessary to make him a steady, reliable and contented working man. … I can conceive of nothing more pathetic than these 3,000 Negroes without a church home wandering about town from pillar to post, unable to obtain the spiritual solace and instruction that they enjoy and need.”
This time, the damage was estimated at $75,000, or about $1.8 million in 2026. The congregation would rebuild yet again. Though the 1918 fire destroyed much of the interior, it left the facade relatively undamaged and unchanged. Based on the amount of damage reportedly suffered in the 1918 fire, the interior of the church today almost certainly dates to this post-fire reconstruction. However, the National Register of Historic Places nomination form notes that “visual evidence in the rafters of the church show that some of the burned structure is encased within the additions that followed, although it is unclear how much of the original 1851 structure and 1881 second-floor structure survive. Either way, contracts were awarded in April 1918 to repair and rebuild, and the congregation was back in the church before the end of the year.
In 1926, another Tudor Revival-style addition, this one an activities building, was built on the west side of the main church section. Composed of three- and four- story sections, it was intended to be an activities space for the church. The architect of this addition is unknown.
Finally, following the unrest of the summer of 1967, Second Baptist reaffirmed its commitment to the city of Detroit. While many were turning their backs on the city and moving out, Second Baptist chose to build and further cement its roots. It hired Black architect Nathan Johnson to erect another addition on the east side of the main church section, at Monroe Avenue and Beaubien Street. Done in the Brutalist style popular at the time, this office and educational building stands out compared to the rest of the church. The education building “allowed the congregation to further its educational impact,” according to the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and it houses Second Baptist’s educational center, a large meeting room, church offices, a rooftop garden, the Underground Railroad Reading Station and a bookstore specializing in Black history. This addition opened in 1968.
A destination for civil rights icons
Given its efforts in the struggle for civil rights and abolition of slavery, it’s not a surprise that Second Baptist would be a frequent stop for leaders of those movements.
Frederick Douglass met with Second Baptist Church leaders in March 1859, and addressed the congregation about the abolition movement. Afterward, Douglass met in Detroit with Brown about his plan to launch an armed rebellion at Harper’s Ferry, Va., that October in an attempt to free enslaved people.
Sojourner Truth visited Detroit a number of times, and it’s likely that she spoke at Second Baptist Church, but no definitive proof has been discovered, according to Jamon Jordan of the Black Scroll Network and official historian of the City of Detroit. W.E.B. DuBois spoke at Second Baptist on May 30, 1919. Carter G. Woodson, the famed Black scholar, also spoke there. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. visited Second Baptist on several occasions, both as a youth with his father and as a speaker in his own right. Most notably delivering the sermon "Rediscovering Lost Values" in 1954 and after his final sermon for the Detroit Council of Churches on March 12, 1958.
Second Baptist Church was also the largest church donor in support of the 382-day Montgomery Bus Boycott.
In 1927, Ralph Bunche, the first African American awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, was baptized at Second Baptist. The Detroit native received the award for his mediation work dealing with Israel following World War II.
On Jan. 6, 1863, Black Detroiters gathered at Second Baptist to celebrate the Emancipation Proclamation, which President Abraham Lincoln had issued five days earlier and declared more than 3.5 million enslaved people in the South free, though it would not be until the end of the Civil War two years later that they would see it.
One hundred years later, then-Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson came to Detroit to unveil a plaque at Second Baptist commemorating the anniversary. It read: "President Abraham Lincoln formally issued his Emancipation Proclamation on Jan. 1, 1863. The first celebration in honor of the event in Detroit was held in the Second Baptist Church on January 6, 1863. The Negro citizens of Detroit resolved that when in the course of human events there comes a day which is destined to be an everlasting beacon light marking a joyful era in the progress of a nation and the hopes of a people, it seems to be fitting the occasion that it should not pass unnoticed by those whose hopes it comes to brighten and to bless. Presented to the city of Detroit by the J.L. Hudson Company, January 6, 1963, centennial of the meeting."
The legacy of the Rev. Robert L. Bradby
Though Second Baptist saw a number of pastors come and go in its early years, the Rev. Robert L. Bradby Sr. would not only provide a stabilizing force over 36 years but ensure the church played a major role in the 20th century civil-rights movement. Bradby was born Sept. 17, 1877, near Toronto, and moved around the Midwest preaching. He came to Detroit from the Third Baptist Church of Toledo in 1910. At the time, Second Baptist consisted of about 250 members. Within five years, he expanded church membership by some 900 members, and would ultimately grow it to 4,000. This was thanks, in part, to his time at the church coinciding with the Great Migration, which brought many Black Americans to the Motor City in search of work in the factories.
One of the ways that he helped bring these newly minted Detroiters into the church fold was through his efforts to establish a welcoming committee for Black Southerners arriving at Michigan Central Station. They would help the families get set up in Detroit with housing and employment, and as a result, often got them to join the congregation. To help land them good-paying jobs, Bradby established a relationship with Ford Motor Co., in which “vetted” applicants from the church would be recommended for job openings. This ensured the church could provide for its members while also giving the automaker a reliable source of labor.
The reverend also worked closely with the Detroit Urban League and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the latter of which was housed at Second Baptist from 1925 to 1927. Brady became president of the Detroit Branch of the NAACP in 1925. Brady also had relationships with Detroit Mayor Frank Murphy and others at City Hall.
He died June 3, 1946, in his office at the church. He was 68 years old.
Preserving the legacy
On Feb. 16, 1975, a Michigan state historical marker was dedicated at Second Baptist Church of Detroit. The church was individually listed on the National Register of Historic Places on March 19, 1975 and, later, in 1982, was included as a contributing building in the National Register’s Greektown Historic District.
In June 2023, Second Baptist was among eight historic sites across the country to be awarded a $1.2 million grant from Conserving Black Modernism, part of the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s African-American Cultural Heritage Action Fund.
“The church is one year older than the state of Michigan itself,” the church’s pastor, the Rev. Lawrence Rodgers, told The Detroit News for a July 3, 2023, article. “This congregation has such a rich history of standing for justice, freedom, liberation, righteousness and offering a profound Christian witness for so long that it deserves a future.”
Brandon Bibby, senior preservation architect for the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund, perhaps summed it up best when he told The News that “Second Baptist Church of Detroit is a testament to the unwavering spirit of the Black community in Detroit, bearing witness to generations of struggles, triumphs and achievements.”