Green Memorial A.M.E. Zion Church

Green Memorial A.M.E. Zion Church
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Green Memorial A.M.E. Zion Church
43°39′50″N 70°14′58″W / 43.66389°N 70.24944°W / 43.66389; -70.24944
Area	less than one acre
Built	1914
NRHP reference No.	73000115[1]
Added to NRHP	January 17, 1973

The Green Memorial A.M.E. Zion Church is a historic church at 46 Sheridan Street in Portland, Maine. A 2+1⁄2-story structure of textured concrete block masonry, it was built in 1914 to house the congregation founded in 1891. It is named after founder Moses Samuel Green, in his day the city's wealthiest African American. In the middle part of the 20th century, his church was the focal point of the Portland's African-American community, who hosted social events there and organized within the building for civil rights advancements both in Maine and across the US.

The church choir has found many opportunities to perform at venues throughout Maine. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973 and later recognized as one of the state's three properties on that list directly related to African-American history. Rev. Kenneth I. Lewis has been minister since 2003. In 2015, the multi-racial congregation numbered 335.

The Green Memorial A.M.E. Zion Church is located in Portland's eastern Munjoy Hill neighborhood, at the corner of Sheridan and Monument Streets. It is a 2+1⁄2-story masonry structure, built out of concrete blocks and finished with a rough textured exterior. The building corners are partially quoined with smooth blocks. First-floor windows are rectangular sash, while second-floor windows have Gothic lancet arches, and are stained glass. The entrance is near the street corner, sheltered by an open gable-roofed wood frame vestibule; a short wood-frame tower rises through the roof above.^[2]

Moses Samuel Green, born into slavery in 1852, moved from Maryland to Portland the day after Union Station opened in 1888. He opened a shoeshine stand, invested in real estate, and became the city's wealthiest African-American citizen.^{[3]: 119 [4]: 149} Maine historian Bob Greene estimates he may have also been the wealthiest African American statewide. In 1891, Green collaborated with other African-American Portlanders to found the A.M.E. Zion Mission.^[4]: 149 The mission used space in the Mount Zion A.M.E. Church at 63 Mountfort Street, which had existed under multiple names at multiple locations since 1850.^{[4]: 148–150} In 1907, Green and the trustees collaborated to purchase the lot at 46 Sheridan Street, where the A.M.E. Zion Church was built in 1914.^{[4]: 150–151} The attached parsonage was completed in 1924, then converted into an office when the new offsite parsonage was purchased in 1973.^[4]: 151 Green died in 1942; the following year the congregation renamed its church in his honor: Green Memorial A.M.E. Zion Church.^[4]: 150

The nearby Congregational Abyssinian Meeting House closed in 1917, and many of its former members joined the A.M.E. Zion congregation. The Abyssinian's assets were transferred to the Congregational Conferences and Missionary Society of Maine, who transferred them to Green Memorial in 1947. This financial connection led Maine's State Historic Preservation Office to mistakenly claim Green Memorial as the Abyssinian's "descendent organization" on the Green Memorial's 1972 nomination to the National Register of Historic Places.^[5]: 147

At the time Green Memorial was built, Portland's African-American population lived mostly west of downtown near Union Station and east of downtown near the church.^{[6]: 61–62} By the middle of the century, the church was "connected with almost all activities going on in the black community", according to historian Justus Hillebrand.^[6]: 46 The church kept a bulletin board for exchanging information about job opportunities with employers open to employing African-Americans.^{[6]: 57–58} Of the church's activities, some were organized by the all-woman Mis-Ter-Ray Club, which was founded in 1923 to organize tea parties, dances, and other social events, mostly to raise funds for the church.^[6]: 47 The church also brought African-American musicians like Roland Hayes and Marian Anderson to perform in Portland.^[6]: 48 African-Americans across Maine gathered annually on Independence Day, first in Old Orchard Beach in the 1920s, then Scarborough by the 30s, then later Sebago Lake. A bus from Green Memorial provided transportation from Portland for families who couldn't drive themselves.^[7]

The church began hosting monthly chicken dinners, starting 1921.^[4]: 151 A way to raise funds for the church, members of the congregation sold tickets to people in the Portland area, both African-American and not. One organizer was known for selling bundles of tickets to area employers and city hall department heads, who would distribute them individually to employees.^{[6]: 48–49} Many in the congregation were domestic workers, and these dinners were held on Thursdays to correspond with the day they typically did not work.^[8]

According to historian Charles L. Lumpkins, the A.M.E.Z. Church "provided an institutional foundation for civil-rights activity in the area".^[9]: 307 The church hosted meetings and their minister John Bruce traveled to the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.^[10] Their ninth minister, Rev. Stephen Gill Spottswood,^[11] volunteered for the NAACP and joined their campaign to pressure Maine's senators to vote for the 1918 Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill. While president of the Washington, DC, chapter in the 1940s, Spottswood led the campaign to desegregate that city's schools and public accommodations. He became national chair by 1961, but reconnected with Green Memorial as presiding bishop for the A.M.E.Z. New England Conference between 1964 and 1072.^{[12]: 56–57}

Green Memorial was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.^[1] By 1994, it was one of three National Register listings in Maine directly relevant to African-American history.^[4]: 150 That year, after publishing a newspaper series on Portland African-American history, journalist Shoshana Hoose collaborated with Karine Odine in 1994 to co-produce a documentary film on the topic: Anchor of the Soul.^[5]: 146 The word anchor in its title refers to Green Memorial's role in anchoring Portland's African-American community in the twentieth century.^[4]: 150

Rev. Margaret Lawson became Minister of Green Memorial in 1993. A gospel singer herself, she directed choir groups for community events during her tenure.^[13]: 223 While she was minister in 2000, Edward Wilmot Blyden's great-grandson Eluem Blyden from West Africa led the building of a traditional African canoe on church property. Highlighting Africa's maritime heritage, the event corresponded with a sailing event in adjacent Casco Bay.^[3]: 116 When Lawson left Green Memorial in 2003, she was the longest-serving minister in the church's history.^[4]: 151

Rev. Kenneth I. Lewis became minister in 2003.^[4]: 150 Since taking that position, he has also become director of the MaineHealth Center for Tobacco Independence,^[14] member of the City of Portland Police Citizens Review Subcommittee, member of the Portland Community Development Block Grant Allocation Committee, and Diversity Cabinet Chair and board member of the United Way of Greater Portland. In 2020, Governor Janet Mills appointed Lewis to the statewide Permanent Commission on the Status of Racial, Indigenous and Maine Tribal Populations as a faith-based community representative. The commission is tasked with identifying solutions to racial disparities in Maine.^[15]

In 2015, Green Memorial's congregation numbered 335, about 60% of whom were African-American.^[16] Describing the multi-racial nature of the modern congregation, Rev. Lewis said in 2018: "For years the statement was made that Sunday is the most segregated day in the United States. But not at the corner of Monument and Sheridan."^[14]

The congregation is noted for its choir. In 1998, the choir and the Williams Temple Church of God in Christ choir formed the Maine Gospel Choir and performed The Movement, Revisited, a musical about the Civil Rights struggles of the 1960s, at Bates College.^[17] In 2015, the choir performed at a memorial, multi-faith service held at Merrill Auditorium in Portland to honor those lost in the Charleston Church Shooting, a racially motivated mass shooting at a historically Black church. Green Memorial pastor Kenneth Lewis organized the memorial.^[18] Over 1,300 people attended.^[14]

• National Register of Historic Places listings in Portland, Maine