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Bethel A.M.E. Church - Iowa City, Iowa
Application Information from National Register of Historic Places Form
Statement of Significance
Bethel A.M.E. Church, Johnson County, IA
Criterion A
The
Bethel A.M.E. Church in Iowa City is significant as the only
historically black church in Iowa City which, when it was constructed
in 1868 and for many years after, provided a critical and often sole
source of community and association for the town's small population of
resident African Americans. Despite erratic and always meager
congregation numbers, hard financial times, and an occasionally
inhospitable white population surrounding it, the Bethel Church has
survived over 130 years intact, a rock in a weary place.10
It continues to serve its members as a social and religious
institution. Equally important, though it was founded generally by
officials of the northern-based African Methodist Episcopal Church,
this church in particular was established by freedpersons of southern
origins. Thus, it provides a physical connection and historic link to
the last years of slavery in this country as well as to the post-war
efforts of freedpersons and northern blacks alike to conduct their
ordinary lives as would any other small-town Midwest resident.
'Molly Myers Naumann, "Survey and Evaluation of the Longfellow Neighborhood, Iowa City, Iowa,"
unpublished report to the City of Iowa City Historic Preservation Commission, November, 1996, no page
number (but page E-5 of MPDF amendment contained within the report).
10Taken from the spiritual: My God is a rock in a weary land,
My God is a rock in a weary land,
Shelter in a time of storm.
See Clarence E. Walker. A Rock in a Weary Land: The African Methodist Episcopal Church During the Civil
War and Reconstruction (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1982).
(Source: U.S. Dept of Interior, National Register of Historic Places registration form)
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