Oldest African American church in Michigan; administrative records, papers of individual pastors, church publications.
This record group thoroughly documents Second Baptist's efforts to tend to both the spiritual and physical needs of Black Detroiters since the 1920s. The Administration, Pastors' Papers, Publications, and Photographs series reflect, respectively, the internal workings of the church, the private efforts of the pastors over time, and the publicly presented external face of Second Baptist. The microfilm (representing 6 linear feet of manuscript material) consists of annual reports, financial records, histories, minutes of advisory board meetings, pastoral correspondence, annual and quarterly publications, and weekly bulletins. There is also a scattering of photographs. The work of Second Baptist before the 1920s is visible retrospectively in histories and reminiscences sanctioned by the church in the 1930s. The records of the church for the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were evidently destroyed in the fires of 1916 and 1917.