Brown Chapel A.M.E. Church (Selma, Alabama)
Brown Chapel is an African-American church. (A.M.E. Church stands for African Methodist Episcopal Church.)
Slaves in Selma originally attended church with whites. After the Union victory in the Civil War and the slaves' emancipation, a black congregation opened a chapel in the basement of a hotel in 1866.
The first wooden chapel was built in 1868; the present chapel was rebuilt in 1908. It was designed by black architect A. J. Farley.
The church is known to have been a stronghold for voting rights activists during the civil rights movement of the 1960s. State and federal orders were issued banning meetings in black churches, but the chapel was not closed and served as a refuge.
On 7 March 1965, the march also left from here during the ‘Bloody Sunday’ events.
The chapel was selected as a State and National Historical Heritage Site in 1976 and 1982, respectively, but in recent years the building has been damaged and repair work has been carried out since 2022.
