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This year, we gather as a people of memory and mission.
For 135 years, Mount Moriah Baptist Church has stood—not as mere brick and mortar, but as a living testimony to the faith, creativity, and resilience of a people determined to serve God in spirit and truth. Since 1890, when our foremothers and forefathers planted this church in the red clay of Pembroke, Georgia, Mount Moriah has been more than a sanctuary. It has been a homeplace of faith, a fountain of hope, and a center of strength in rural Georgia.
The name Mount Moriah honors the place in the Hebrew Bible where God tested Abraham's faith by asking him to sacrifice his son Isaac. It is also the place where Solomon's Temple was built and where the Temple Mount is located in Jerusalem. Mount Moriah is significant because it represents God's provision, forgiveness, and sacrifice.
Just as God provided a ram as a substitute for Isaac, this ministry has stood as a physical representation of the hope and determination of the African American spirit. We are a Spiritual Anchor grounded in a liberation tradition operating as a Baptist community of faith.
Our church was born in a season much like this one—a time when the promise of freedom following the Civil War was under attack. By 1890, the gains of Reconstruction were being rolled back. The forces of white supremacy were gathering strength: lynch mobs roamed free, Black Codes hardened, and Plessy v. Ferguson was on the horizon, ready to legalize segregation and deny Black dignity. But in the face of that storm, our ancestors gathered. They built. They prayed. They taught their children. They praised their God. They declared, by their very living:
“The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; His mercies never come to an end.” (Lamentations 3:22)
Now, 135 years later, we find ourselves at another crossroads. The same forces that tried to silence Black faith and Black freedom then are still at work now—dressed in new language, cloaked in new laws, but aiming at the same target. And yet, we gather again. We gather to remember, to rejoice, and to recommit.
1890. The Reconstruction dream lay in ruins. Southern Redemption was tightening its grip. Black families faced lynch mobs, voter suppression, and rising segregation—just six years before Plessy v. Ferguson would legalize Jim Crow. And yet, even then, Black folks kept building. That same year, Richard R. Wright, born enslaved, founded what would become Savannah State University, insisting to the world that “We are rising.”
The persons who established the foundation of Mount Moriah Missionary Baptist Church were Deacons J.D. McMoore, Claudius Ealy, Will Pee; Brothers Emanuel Smart, Frank Byrd; sisters Sallie McMoore, Annie Able, Mary Able Treadway. They appointed the Second Sunday as Worship Sunday. Unfortunately, Reverend Sampson soon became sick and notified Reverend N.A. Hart to fill his appointment on the second Sunday in April.
Before the second Sunday in May 1890, Mount Moriah’s organizer, the Reverend Sampson, passed away. The Reverend Hart continued the organizing work with us until the fourth Sunday in June 1891. Mount Moriah then called the Reverend W.H. Styles, and Brothers J.B. Barry and Lane Walker gathered to organize us into a church. Having no house in which to meet, we obtained permission from the St. John A.M.E. Church of Pembroke, Georgia to organize in their house.
The first members of the newly organized church consisted of Brothers J.D. McMoore, Emanuel Smart, Will Pee, Sisters Annie Able, Sallie McMoore, Mary Neill, and Mary Able Treadway, these having obtained peaceful letters from Saint Phillips Baptist Church of Ellabell, Georgia. The new church was named Mount Moriah Missionary Baptist Church and the Reverend N.A. Hart was called as the first Pastor. The first candidates for baptism were Brother Daniel Able and Sister Maggie Able.
Mount Moriah rose not from comfort, but from conviction. And we have never stopped rising.
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Special Dedication
Mother Ethel Mae Collins is the 2025 Recipient of the Eugene Amos Hagin Award for Meritorious Service to this Congregation. This year's Church Anniversary Service is dedicated to her in recognition of her steadfast devotion to Jesus Christ as an Ambassador of the Mount Moriah congregation.
ABOUT THE PROGRAM ART
First Sunday on the Cover is by Jonathan Green. One of the most influential and important painters of the Southern experience, Green exquisitely captures a sense of time and place. Green's work is drawn from the inspiration of the everyday life of the Geechee Gullah people of the Georgia-Carolina Low Country. Learn more.
