Million Dollar Facelift for Historic Brown Chapel AME Church
By E. Ann Clemons, 9th Episcopal District
Historic Brown Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church has received a 1.3-million-dollar grant from the National Park Service-African American Civil Rights Grants Program. The $23,500, cost of the grants submitted was paid by The Brown Chapel AME Church Preservation Society, Foundation.
Architect, Richard Hudgens, led the Church’s examination and study along with structural and electrical engineers. Mr. Hudgens compiled and submitted plans for structural plans for structural restoration and repairs of Brown Chapel to the National Park Service for review and permission to proceed with the project.
Mr. Jerry Lathan of the Lathan Company of Mobile, Alabama is the contractor who will execute this historic restoration. The approved summary of objectives and results to be performed will be done in accordance with the Secretary of the Interior’s Standard and Guidelines for Archeology and the Treatment of Historic Preservations.
On Wednesday, June 23,2021, a ceremonial Groundbreaking took place on the campus of Brown Chapel AME Church at 410 Martin Luther King Street in Selma, Alabama. Governor Kay Ivey, Congresswoman Terri Sewell, Bishop Harry Seawright, Presiding Prelate of the Ninth Episcopal District, Presiding Elder, Reverend Dr. Jacqueline Denson, and Reverend Leodis Strong, Pastor of Brown Chapel. The Foundation Board of Directors: Dr. Leroy Maxwell, Chairman, Juanda Maxwell, Project Director & Funding Chairman, Al Perry, Treasurer, (the Late) Nancy Sewell, Secretary, Johnny Moss, Aubrey Larkin and James Dawson along with a host of proud AME’s across the Ninth District joined in the ribbon cutting for the restoration of this National Historic Landmark Brown Chapel was added to the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage on June 16, 1976, added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982, and declared a National Historic Landmark in 1997.
