Ebenezer Baptist Church

Ebenezer Baptist Church is situated in the Sweet Auburn district of Atlanta, a neighborhood that has been called the cradle of the civil rights movement. Ebenezer was a spiritual center of civil rights activism, most notably as the home church of Martin Luther King Jr. Drawing inspiration from this legacy, Ebenezer has remained committed to nonviolence and the fight for social justice. The church derives its name, Ebenezer, from a Hebrew word meaning “stone of help” (1 Samuel 7:12).

Ebenezer was organized in 1886 by a former slave, John A. Parker, who became the church's first pastor. Ebenezer's initial home was a small, boxlike structure on Airline Street in Atlanta's historically diverse Fourth Ward. When Alfred Daniel Williams became Ebenezer's minister in 1894, the church's membership ...