St Paul AME church - 1st AME church west of the Mississippi

Last went: 2023
Will go again: 2033
Cost: As with all non-profits, I do ask that you bring at least $5 to donate to the church if you are able.

To celebrate Black History Month, St. Paul AME has invited our group to a 10:00am service with them on Sunday, February 8. This is the 185th church anniversary and Founders Day for the St. Louis AME church.

In 2023, the church built the history talk about the church into the church service. I still need to check on if this will be the case this year or if it will follow after the service. In 2023, we were guided through the church and shown different pictures and a bit more detailed history after the service with church members.

This church has an extensive history in St. Louis and many well-known St. Louis residents have called St Paul AME their church home.

From the church website: https://stpaulamestl.net/church-history

"St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church has the second oldest black congregation in St. Louis and is the oldest AME church west of the Mississippi River. The date on the cornerstone of the Lawton-Leffingwell building places the formal organization of St. Paul AME Church at 1841.

"Prayer meetings or societies had been organized much earlier and met in private homes, due to the growing power of slavery, and the Nat Turner Insurrection of 1831; they also were obligated to proceed with caution. One of the several meeting homes was that of Priscilla Baltimore, a slave and nurse who purchased her own freedom and that of her husband. The society came to be known as "Little Bethel Chapel.

"In the year of 1836, Rev. William Paul Quinn was sent on a missionary ... to work in the west. He came to Illinois, and was not permitted at that time to preach in St. Louis, as Missouri was still a slave state. By 1840, Rev. William Paul Quinn conceived the idea of standing on the Illinois side of the Mississippi River and preaching across the river to the men and women, many of them slaves; on the Missouri side in (St. Louis).

"St. Paul A.M.E. Church was the initial birthplace of the St. Louis Chapter of the NAACP in 1913. It was also the church home of Annie Malone, Madame C.J. Walker, and Ethel Hedgeman Lyle, one of the head founders of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc."