Located at 1219 Druid Hill Avenue, Union was organized on May 10, 1852. After moving from a North Street location, our current edifice became the first church in Baltimore City to be built “by Negroes for Negroes” upon its dedication in 1905. This building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places by the United States Department of the Interior in 2010.
Ten pastors have served her over 165 years of existence. The congregation, presently led by Rev. Dr. Alvin C. Hathaway, Sr., has had the distinction of also being led by two nationally recognized pastors: Rev. Dr. Harvey Johnson (1872-1923) and Rev. Vernon N. Dobson (1967-2007).
The church has an extremely rich history in the civil rights movement, starting in 1892 with its withdrawal from the Maryland Baptist Union Association because of its discrimination.
In 1897, Rev. Dr. Harvey Johnson organized the Colored Baptist Convention. Johnson, a friend of W.E.B. DuBois, established the Niagara Movement, which was a prototype for the NAACP. He also filed a lawsuit to gain equal pay for black teachers and to make it possible for black lawyers to practice in the state of Maryland. Dr. Johnson also filed lawsuit and won the first case in the U.S. striking down the identification of Negroes as cargo in interstate commerce.
The tenure of Rev. Dobson saw a continuation of the work of the civil rights movement. Rev. Dobson began working with Dr. Martin Luther King and Union became one of the major sponsors of the March on Washington in the Poor People’s Campaign.
Union also was a staging ground for many civil rights meetings: a major achievement was the integration of Gwynn Oak Amusement Park. Under Dobson’s leadership, a pilot Head Start program was tested in 1968, a full time program was established two years later, and a child care center was built to house the program in 1995 at a cost of $3.2 million. Union was a co-founder of BUILD in the 1970s, under Rev. Dobson’ s leadership.