Indiana: Historic AME Churches

10 Locations | Curated by Preston Reynolds, Wabash College

“We are not a museum; we are alive and well.” Rev. Deborah Lightfoot Oats addressed her Terre Haute African Methodist Episcopal (AME) congregation with these words in 2009. For many of Indiana’s AME churches, the balance between history and spirituality is tenuous. Many churches represent the collective history of African American settlers throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, symbols of unity through faith. Touring Indiana’s AME churches not only emphasizes the history of African American communities but demonstrates their resilience through discrimination and strife.

This tour explores the histories of many local AME churches, their congregations, and their buildings throughout Central and Southern Indiana.Many of Indiana’s earliest AME Churches are interlocked with William Paul Quinn, the fourth Bishop of the national church. Quinn’s ‘circuit’ connected much of Southern and Central Indiana’s Black communities. The oldest churches of this tour are inseparable from William Paul Quinn’s legacy in Indiana history.

Many of these locations are either private or inaccessible. Please be respectful of private property lines when visiting each of these sites. Please remember that this is by no means a comprehensive list of sites in Indiana.

Believed to be the oldest Black church in New Albany, Bethel African American Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Church has been a pillar of Black life and culture in southern Indiana for more than 150 years. Founded in 1848, the church became active in the antislavery crusade and supported Black…
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By 1860, Indianapolis had one of the largest African American populations in the state. Tracking the settlement of both rural and urban blacks in Marion County has presented many issues. Census records indicate that the majority of Marion’s Black population settled in the second half of the 19th century. However, the well-recorded presence of the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church indicates…
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Montgomery County’s Black population, while recorded on census data, has not been documented as thoroughly in primary sources. Early settlers may have arrived around the 1820s, with the population growing steadily throughout the 19th century. Most blacks lived around Crawfordsville and Union Township. Crawfordsville’s early Black settlement is seen through the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal…
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First settled around 1806, Richmond Indiana was at the frontlines of 19th century Westward expansion. Richmond became home to Quakers, New Englanders, and African Americans. By the 1830s, Wayne County had more than 400 Black residents, many of which lived in and around Richmond. Richmond’s Bethel African Methodist Episcopal (AME) demonstrates the importance and affluence of the early 19th century…
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A short time after the 1814 census, Harrison County saw the arrival of around 100 African Americans, many of which took the name ‘Mitchem’. While these were not the first blacks to arrive in Harrison, their settlement made up much of the county’s Black demographic before the Civil War. St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church of Corydon is well representative of Indiana’s role in pre-Civil War…
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Tippecanoe County was an early hub for African American settlers before the Civil War. Early sources mention a prevalence of Urban settlers and Black barbers throughout well-populated areas of the county. Lafayette African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church was heavily involved in Tippecanoe’s history with the Civil War and segregated education. Their congregation has historically stood for the…
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Vigo County is a well-known site of early African American settlement, having close to 100 residents in 1820. ‘Lost Creek’ is identified as one of Terre Haute’s oldest Black settlements. A common identifier of Black settlement in Vigo County is the establishment of an AME church in Terre Haute. Allen Chapel African Methodist Episcopal (AME) serves as a bulwark of Terre Haute’s history, a reminder…
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Clark County consistently had one of the largest Black populations in Indiana, the majority of which settled in Jeffersonville or Clarksville. Black congregations became a staple of Jeffersonville’s communities, including the First Colored Baptist in 1861 and Wesleyan Methodists around 1876. Jeffersonville’s African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church has been less documented, despite being older…
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Johnson County Indiana did not have a significant African American population until the Civil War. Before 1860, the county census recorded less than twenty Black residents. However, the rapid organization of Franklin’s AME church following the Civil War is indicative of the County’s strong Black roots. Like most African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Churches, Bethel has consistently served as a…
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This student research was funded through the Wabash College Restoring Hope, Restoring Trust (RHRT) project sponsored by the Lilly Endowment’s Chartering the Future for Indiana’s Colleges and Universities grant program. RHRT specifically focuses on building research support for the study of Black men in higher education and for the African American historical and cultural sites in the State of Indiana. In support of this goal, the Robert T. Ramsay, Jr. Archival Center at Wabash College supported this student research project, and the student used the Ramsay Archival Center's Dr. Timothy Lake’s Black Cultural Sites in Indiana Collection in their research.

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