Memphis: Then & Now
See what's changed and what hasn't in Memphis over the last 45 to 100+ years.
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Beale Street Baptist Church 1974/2017
1974 photograph - Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs
Division, Historic American Building Survey, item tn0176.
2017 photograph by Tim Doyle.
Beale Street Baptist Church was built by freed slaves in the
late 1800s and was the first church in Memphis for
African Americans. The newspaper “Memphis Free Speech”
(later co-owned and edited by Ida B. Wells), that advocated
for racial equality, had its beginnings in the church.
