The African Meeting House, also known variously as First African Baptist Church, First Independent Baptist Church and the Belknap Street Church, was built in 1806 and is now the oldest black church edifice still standing in the United States. The church also established a school, at first holding classes in its basement. After serving most of the nineteenth century as a church, it then served as a synagogue until 1972 when it was purchased for the Museum of African American History. It is located in the Beacon Hill neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, adjacent to the historically Black American Abiel Smith School, now also part of the museum. It is a National Historic Landmark.
African Meeting House
Beacon Hill is a historic neighborhood in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, and the hill upon which the Massachusetts State House resides. The term "Beacon Hill" is used locally as a metonym to refer to the state government or the legislature itself, much like Washington, D.C.'s Capitol Hill does at the federal level.
Park Street, looking toward the Massachusetts State House
Window boxes on cobblestoned Acorn Street
Cutting down Beacon Hill in 1811; a view from the north toward the Massachusetts State House
Founders Memorial, John Francis Paramino, 1930. The memorial, located in the Boston Common, depicts the city's first English resident, William Blackstone, greeting colonial governor John Winthrop and his company.