St. Bartley Primitive Baptist Church in Huntsville was established in 1820 by enslaved African Americans who had been meeting informally since 1808. Slaves originally met in secret at night to worship in the Old Georgia Graveyard and eventually erected a small church there, which they named the Huntsville African Baptist Church. That church was destroyed during the Civil War, and the structure pictured here was built in 1872. It served the congregation until 1965, when the building was torn down for urban renewal. The current church building was dedicated in December of that year.
