| St. Mark's African Methodist Episcopal Church | |
| Location: | 530 N. 5th Avenue E., Duluth, Minnesota |
| Coordinates: | 46.7958°N -92.0982°W |
| Area: | Less than one acre |
| Built: | 1900, 1913 |
| Architecture: | Late Gothic Revival |
| Refnum: | 91000439 |
| Added: | April 16, 1991 |
St. Mark's African Methodist Episcopal Church is a historic African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church in Duluth, Minnesota, United States. St. Mark's has played a central role in Duluth's African-American community for more than 124 years. While other black organizations have dissolved or moved to the Minneapolis–Saint Paul area, St. Mark's has been a local mainstay.[1]
The lower level of the building was constructed in 1900 and the Gothic Revival upper level was completed in 1913.[2] The church was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1991 for its local significance in the themes of black ethnic heritage and social history.[3] It was nominated for serving as a religious and social center for Duluth's African-American community, and for its status as the city's only historic building constructed by and for African Americans.
Duluth's African-American population at the turn of the 20th century was small but active. Blacks established fraternal orders, political clubs, and newspapers in the port city, mirroring larger establishments in Minneapolis–Saint Paul. Churches were fundamental to the growth and connectivity of the community.
St. Mark's AME Church was the first and only building in Duluth built by blacks, for blacks. Founded in 1890 by Reverend Richmond Taylor, the congregation first met at Fourth Street and Fourth Avenue West. Soon afterward it moved to a newly constructed building at 530 North Fifth Avenue East. The structure's basement level accommodated the congregation until 1913, when the main level was completed. The simple brick building sits in a mostly residential area. It features a two-story bell tower, Tudor Revival elements, and locally made stained-glass windows.
Like many churches at the time, St. Mark's in the early 20th century offered the community a central space for religious, social, and political conversation and networking. The local Masonic Order frequently held meetings at the church, and membership there and in local black organizations overlapped.
At the time of St. Mark's construction, most African-American men in Duluth worked as janitors, waiters, porters, or dock or boat workers. A few independent barbershops and restaurants succeeded. Other employment came to Duluth via the U.S. Steel corporation.
St. Mark's growth in its early years paralleled the growth of the African-American population in Duluth, largely driven by job opportunities at U.S. Steel. In the early 1920s, the company recruited laborers—many from Southern states—to work at their plant in Morgan Park, a planned community near the edge of Duluth. Recruits found poor wages, unfamiliar weather, and discrimination upon arrival. Though their jobs were in Morgan Park, the company town, African-American employees could not live there. It was a whites-only community. Most blacks settled in Gary, which was also a company town, or the East Hillside neighborhood, near St. Mark's.
After World War I, Duluth's blacks faced stricter segregation and harsher discrimination. When the 1920 Duluth lynchings of three traveling black workers captured national attention, St. Mark's was proactive in response. Reverend William M. Majors of St. Mark's assisted in efforts to indict the lynchers. The NAACP provided legal and financial support for the proceedings.
Before the lynching, African Americans in Duluth were not convinced a local NAACP chapter was necessary. After the incident, some outraged and fearful blacks left Duluth altogether. Those who remained formed an NAACP chapter with 69 members, and St. Mark's provided gathering space for the new organization.
NAACP founder W. E. B. Du Bois was the chapter's first speaker. In March 1921, he came to St. Mark's and spoke in favor of Minnesota's pending anti-lynching law, which the state legislature passed the next month. Ethel Ray Nance, whose father helped establish the Duluth chapter and who became a civil rights leader in her own right, recalled in a 1974 interview that the church far exceeded its 250-person capacity when Du Bois came. She estimated that 75% of the crowd was white.
Duluth's black population grew to about 900 by 1970. In 2014, it remained just under 2,000, or 2% of the city's total population. St. Mark's continues to be central to the community and attuned to racial issues in the 21st century. St. Mark's parishioners hosted a prayer vigil and bell-ringing for victims of the Charleston church shooting at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in South Carolina in June 2015.