Mt. Zion Baptist Church

 

Host Church for the Grambling Gospel Music Workshop

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The organized recorded history of Mount Zion Baptist Church has been made possible through the efforts of many members of the church and community as they passed their legacies, as they knew them, on to others.  Five such members who have provided outstanding leadership in this collective effort have been Deacons Charles Henry Land, Sr. (deceased),  Loester D. Land, Sr. (deceased), David Wright (deceased), Lawrence E. Garner, and Sister R.P. Wimbush (deceased). Mount Zion Baptist Church is the oldest church in the Grambling Community.  It was organized in 1868, five (5) years after Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, and three (3) years after the end of the Civil War in 1865. Some four (4) million Blacks were emancipated following the ratification of the 13th Amendment on December 18, 1865.  It was from the vision of those emancipated Blacks, just three years out of slavery, that the Mount Zion Baptist Church was organized.

 

The first building was a crude constructed brush arbor, located about three-fourth miles south of Grambling State University’s present site.  The original founders and officers were Reverend Daniel Thompson, Deacon Burrell Grandberry, Deacon George Anderson, and Deacon Samuel Douglas.  The officers set the third Sunday of each month for the church service that was characterized as simple and sincere.

 

 

 

As the membership grew and population shifted, it became necessary to transplant the church to another site which was commonly known as the Old Murphy Place, and later moved to its current site.  It was not uncommon for the membership to walk and ride as far as eight to ten miles to be in attendance at the monthly service.  In September 1962 a one story all mason building was completed with our own Deacon B. B. Osborne as the builder.