- Church & institution
- Segregation
- founded 1869; building 1921
- City of Atlanta
- Location approximate
Wheat Street Baptist Church
A Sweet Auburn congregation that doubled as an organizing hall. Rev. William Holmes Borders launched the 1957 bus protest here, and the Butler Street YMCA began in its basement in 1894.
The record
The church was founded in 1869 and rebuilt in 1921 after the 1917 fire; its name comes from Wheat Street, the old name of Auburn Avenue. Over 500 striking washerwomen met there in 1881. Borders, pastor from 1937 to 1988, announced the Triple L bus movement there on January 8, 1957, and the arrested ministers were taken from the church. In 1956 it became the first Black church to sponsor a federal credit union. Borders's Wheat Street Gardens is described in the Georgia Exhibits urban renewal exhibit as the nation's first federally subsidized, church-operated public housing project. In February 1961 sit-in leaders met Borders and A. T. Walden here during the negotiations to end the protests.
Today: An active church beside the King National Historical Park.