Ward Chapel AME Church of Cairo

Ward Chapel AME Church was organized in 1863. In 1875, Bishop Wayman of Baltimore, MD, traveled to Cairo to dedicate the church on August 19th. A fire destroyed the church in 1916, and the current church building was completed in 1918.

Ward Chapel was the first Black church in Cairo, and is associated with significant events relating to the multi-decade, multi organizational effort to desegregate the city, and improve the social and economic circumstances of Black Cairoites that were harmed by systemic and structural racism. These events include strategization by Black Cairo School District Teachers and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) for pay equality in 1945, Non-violent protest trainings and “sit-ins” of businesses and public facilities organized by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in 1962, the organization and deployment of a three-year economic boycott of white businesses in Cairo from 1969 to 1971, and the establishment of a medical clinic run by the “Flying Black Medics” in 1970, a group of doctors and nurses that flew from Chicago to provide medical services to Black Cairoites in the basement of Ward Chapel.

Preservation Futures is working with the Cairo Historical Preservation Project to nominate the Church to the National Register of Historic Places and to support the restoration of the building and the city of Cairo.

Pictured:

Dr. Leonidas Berry (far left), Reverend Charles Koen, and members of the “Flying Black Medics” in the basement of Ward Chapel, February 15, 1970. (Vivian G. Harsh Research Collection of Afro-American History and Literature)