The Mount Nebo Baptist Church

The church is tied to a famous funeral. When Lucie E. Campbell died in Nashville on January 3, 1963, her funeral was held here on January 7, and she was buried in Mount Carmel Cemetery. Campbell had been the National Baptist Convention's longtime music director, and the convention had set aside June 20, 1962, as Lucie E. Campbell Appreciation Day, honoring her as its first lady of music. She had taught at Kortrecht and Booker T. Washington High School for 44 years.

What the plaque says

The Mount Nebo Baptist Church Front: Completed in 1896, this Gothic church edifice was erected by the Grace Episcopal Church. Because the Memphis Housing Authority selected a site for public housing in proximity to Grace Episcopal Church, in November 1938, Grace Episcopal congregants unanimously voted to sell its building and adjoining property to the Mount Nebo (Negro) Baptist Church, also known as "Sack Chapel." Dating back to 1907, the congregation chose the Rev. Isaac Cotton as their first pastor. Located at several previous locations, Mount Nebo located on South Somerville. Back: For a short time the members met in an improvised building using old sacks for the enclosure, thus the sobriquet "Sacks Chapel." The Reverends Abraham Henderson, J.W. Shaw, Roy Love, and James H. Joyner, Jr., followed Cotton, who named the church. Members of the Mount Nebo Baptist Church took possession of the Gothic structure in 1939. Under the pastorate of the Reverend Roy Love, the congregation's membership increased from 280 to more than 1,500 members.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sun Studio — 0.5 mi
  The small Union Avenue room where Sam Phillips recorded Rocket 88, Howlin' Wolf, Elvis Presley and the Million Dollar Quartet, now a National Historic Landmark.
• Beale Street — 0.6 mi
  The street that became the center of Black Memphis after the Civil War, home to Church's Park, W. C. Handy, Ida B. Wells and the blues, now a National Historic Landmark district.
• 1866 Memphis Massacre Marker at Army Park — 0.8 mi
  A privately funded NAACP marker in a small downtown park, placed in 2016, that names the May 1866 attack on Black South Memphis as a massacre.
• National Civil Rights Museum — 0.8 mi
  The Lorraine Motel, where Martin Luther King Jr. was killed on April 4, 1968, kept as a museum of the civil rights movement from the nineteenth century to today.

More markers nearby

• St. John Baptist Church — steps away
• Universal Life Insurance Building / Universal Life Insurance Company — 0.2 mi
• George W. Lee 1894-1976 — 0.3 mi
• Mary Church Terrell — 0.4 mi