Collins Chapel CME Church: Memphis' Oldest African American Church in Continuous Existence Since 1841
- lvenegas13
- May 16
- 6 min read
678 Washington Avenue, Memphis TN 38105
(901) 529-8187
With Memphis and the Black struggle for equal representation in Tennessee in the news right now, the story of Collins Chapel CME in Memphis is relevant and important to hear. The city has a complicated history when it comes to race relations, as you may know. As the oldest, continuously operated African American church in Memphis, this congregation has seen everything, from slavery and the Civil War to Jim Crow and the Civil Rights movement. But one of its most tragic chapters is also the least mentioned in Tennessee history: the 1866 Memphis Massacre.
According to its website, Collin Chapel Christian Methodist Episcopal (CME) had humble beginnings as a gathering of slaves and freedmen on the balcony of the Wesley Chapel Methodist Church in 1841. By 1859 the group had saved up and bought land on Washington Avenue, and the church has been on this site ever since, making it the oldest continuous Black church in Memphis. Collins Chapel CME is named after Rev. Joseph Thomas Christopher Collins, a circuit minister who was appointed to preach to the new congregation. For 185 years Collins Chapel CME has continued to be an anchor of spiritual faith in the community, often playing an important role in helping the African American community overcome some of its greatest challenges.
Because being a black church in a Southern city is not an easy thing to be.
The first church was burnt to the ground during the 1866 Memphis Massacre, a horrific moment in the city’s history that is rarely acknowledged in Tennessee and surely deserves to be remembered and discussed.
Memphis was captured by Union forces in 1862 and became a center for “contraband camps” made up of runaway slaves and freedmen looking for military protection, federal assistance and jobs. The African American population of Memphis exploded; some lived in camps while the families of the US Colored Troops 3rd Artillery lived in cabins and shacks near Fort Pickering under Union General George Stoneman. The white residents of Memphis were overcome with the new, freshly freed arrivals, and resentments were barely contained. In addition, the ethnic Irish who had come to Memphis in the 1840’s and 50’s had little love for African Americans, despite they themselves encountering considerable discrimination. While many were competing for the same lower-class jobs, others were attaining positions of power, becoming the mayor (John Park), politicians and policemen. The exodus from plantations also caused a crisis for white landowners who then faced a huge labor shortage. So, what was a corrupt Shelby County to do? Cue a collusion between police, lawyers, judges and jailers called the Black Codes, which forced arrested black people to sign labor contracts and go back to the plantations to work. So, a trifecta of hate between Memphis whites, the Irish and plantation owners now set the stage for a horrendous confrontation.
The main targets for this forced labor were African American soldiers, arrested for minor offences and treated brutally by the Irish police, angry at seeing armed black men in uniform. By 1866, when the UCST were mustered out of the military, anger and bitterness over their treatment in Memphis simmered to a boil. On April 30th, a street fight broke out between four Irish policemen and three black soldiers. One thing led to another, and the next day a firefight between the soldiers and policemen became a riot. Angry white residents joined the fighting, inflamed by the local newspaper the Daily Avalanche and city officials. They claimed there was an armed rebellion, and that (white) people should kill black people and drive them out of the city. Gen. Stoneman was reluctant to use force to dampen the riots, later saying that black people did not act aggressively but rather struggled to stay alive. The white mob attacked black residents and burnt down homes, schools and churches in the community. The homes and wives of black soldiers were primarily singled out, but African Americans who were considered subservient were spared.
“… The negro can do the country more good in the cotton field than in the camp… The chief source of all our trouble being removed, we may confidently expect a restoration of the old order of things. The negro population will now do their duty ... Negro men and negro women are suddenly looking for work on country farms ... Thank heaven, the white race are once more rulers in Memphis." – The Daily Avalanche
According to newspaper accounts and other sources, 46 black and 2 white people were killed (one white person wounded himself and Confederate veteran Ben Dennis was killed by other white people for talking with a black friend in a bar), 75 persons were injured (mostly black), over 100 were robbed, 5 black women reported being raped, and 91 homes were burned (89 held by black people, one held by a white person and one by an interracial couple). Four black churches, including Collins Chapel CME, and 12 black schools were burned. And yet despite the killings, rapes and extensive damage there were no criminal proceedings against any of the instigators or perpetrators.
There was an investigation into the incident by the US House of Representatives, however, that relied heavily on the testimony of General Stoneman, among others, and provoked righteous anger against those involved.
However undeniably tragic this event was, there were several good outcomes: Spurred by this and other race riots, Congress moved toward Radical Reconstruction, during which Republicans seized control away from known racist Pres. Andrew Johnson. They sent federal troops to the South to former Confederate state governments and passed key pieces of legislation including the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution, which guaranteed citizenship, equal protection of the laws and due process to the formerly enslaved. Freedmen finally found themselves with the full rights of citizenship.
Unfortunately, the killings and attacks on African Americans in Shelby County did not end with the Massacre. Another tragic aspect of Memphis history is the lynchings that took place for decades during Reconstruction. To remember those who perished and promote understanding of the factors that led to the violence, the Lynching Sites Project places plaques in the locations where individuals died. Two of these plaques are in front of the Collins CME Church memorializing the nearby lynchings of Wash Henley and an unidentified African American man in 1851 and 1869. Learn more about the project’s goal to work toward racial equality and justice by cultivating courageous conversations here.
Collins Chapel CME rebuilt their church after the Massacre, growing to more than 1,000 members by 1900 and becoming the only African American church in Memphis, and now the longest in continuous existence in the city. A lightning fire in 1913 once more forced some rebuilding. A beautiful renovation in 1975 preserved many of the original features, including the antique chandelier, hammer beams, original bricks, and the sweeping wrap-around balcony.
Throughout the 20th century the involvement of the church in the African American rights movement continued. In 1915 six church practitioners and leaders became chartered members of the NAACP, and over the decades the church was very active in the Civil Rights struggles of the city. It is likely involved today in finding ways to continue the work given the recent redistricting ruling that is making African American political leaders in Shelby County find new ways to represent their districts.
Historic Collins Chapel Christian Methodist Episcopal is on the National Register of Historic Places and continues to act as the heart of Memphis African American culture. The nearby Collins Chapel Connectional Hospital serves with Room In The Inn as a recuperative care facility for the homeless of Memphis and Shelby County. Although there are no formal tours, you can attend church services and Sunday school and given its history and the important work it has championed, it is certainly worth considering a visit.
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