Shiloh Baptist Church in Central is called the mother church of Black Baptist churches in Cleveland.
Founded 176 years ago, it was the city’s first Black Baptist congregation. Shiloh’s existence has been intertwined with Black life in Cleveland.
The church was founded by a free Black community during slavery. It stood firm through Reconstruction, Jim Crow and other legal racial segregation and discrimination. The church withstood two World Wars and the Great Depression. Shiloh welcomed African Americans from the South seeking a new life in the North during the Great Migration. The church was active in the Civil Rights Movement. And it weathered the depopulation of the city and disinvestment in urban neighborhoods. It awaits Cleveland’s nascent renaissance.
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke at the church on Scovill Avenue and East 55 Street. It doesn’t escape Shiloh’s current and first woman senior pastor, the Rev. Dr. Lisa M. Goods, that she preaches from the same pulpit where the civil rights leader addressed a packed sanctuary in 1967. (The overflow crowd listened from outside.) King was a friend of the Rev. Dr. Alfred M. Waller, Shiloh’s senior pastor from 1963 to 1990.
Historic photos line the walls at Shiloh Baptist Church in Cleveland’s Central neighborhood.
“I have immense pride preaching from that pulpit that has hosted such historic figures who have put forth such prophetic words to encourage the people of Cleveland and be a vessel used by God,” she said.
While many think of the post-World War II Great Migration as the beginning of a Black community in Cleveland, the city’s African American population dates to the early 1800s. George Peake became Cleveland’s first Black resident in 1809, and, by 1860, 799 African Americans were included among the city’s population of 43,000, according to the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History.
St. John’s African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in Central is Cleveland’s first Black church, founded in 1836. Even though Shiloh wasn’t founded until 1849, Goods said it is sometimes considered the mother church of Cleveland’s Black Christians because of the popularity of the denomination among Greater Cleveland’s Black church-goers.
Repairs mount as Shiloh makes due until money can be raised
Shiloh, which had a few thousand members in the 1940s, now has fewer than 100 members, Goods said. (Steep declines in membership are common in many Cleveland congregations as fewer Americans attend church and the city’s population dwindles.)
Low membership can make finding money for maintenance and repairs – for a building about 120 years old – challenging. This is why Goods is enthusiastic about the Cleveland Restoration Society’s efforts to start a $5 million fund for major repairs at the city’s historic Black churches.
Plaster and some of the 100 stained glass panes in the dome above much of the sanctuary began falling a few years ago. There was no way the congregation could pay the $200,000 needed to restore the dome. The congregation was able to raise several thousand dollars for protective netting designed to catch plaster and stained glass before it fell on anyone.
“We were doing the best we could,” Goods said. “It was makeshift, but it kept it us going until we were able to accumulate the funds.”
Shiloh has had to often make do. There was crumbling, water damaged plaster, even in the sanctuary as the congregation saved to fix part of the roof.
One day recently, Goods and Peggie Brown, a 60-year member, beamed as they pointed to scaffolding and discussed the restoration under way. They also pointed to the once-crumbling wall that is now replastered. Fundraising had been successful. It included a Preserving Black Churches grant from the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
The congregation, which hasn’t been able to use the sanctuary since last fall, will return next month. Shiloh will mark what they are calling their relaunch with activities from July 17 through July 20. (They’ve been holding services at Fairmount Presbyterian Church in Cleveland Heights.)
“I can’t wait,” said Brown, who misses worshiping under the dome she cherishes.
For her, repairing the dome is about more than building preservation. It’s about preserving Shiloh’s history and legacy.
The Black church and community involvement
In 1925, Shiloh moved into its current home, the former B’nai Jeshurun synagogue. Changes were made in the sanctuary to reflect Baptist traditions, but Jewish symbols such as those depicting the Torah and the menorah remain.
“We didn’t erase all of that history because the Jewish history is the Old Testament of the Bible, and so it is a part of our history,” Goods said, adding that Shiloh has a relationship with B’nai Jeshurun. “We embrace what was before and we build on that, bringing our culture with it.”
Part of Shiloh’s culture has always been to be community-minded. A hallway in the church is filled with displays of the church’s history. Brown points to a photo of a house the church repaired after a family was burned out during the 1966 Hough riots. Because of redlining, many inner-city residents couldn’t get adequate home insurance. Brown said this family most likely would have become homeless had it not been for the church because the family didn’t have the money to rebuild. Waller, then pastor, was among those who walked the streets of Hough in an effort to restore peace.
Despite membership declines, Shiloh has remained active in the community. The church gives out food boxes monthly to residents. It distributes school supplies at an annual festival. Shiloh was a site for COVID vaccines. It has partnered with Ghetto Therapy in offering programs open to the community. Shiloh is hoping to raise $3 million to renovate space, including 30 classrooms, to become a hub for community-based programs.
Brown’s dream is that many who use Shiloh’s community programs will also view it as a church that can meet their spiritual needs. Because of the history of the Black church, many see Shiloh as more than a religious institution, Goods said. It often is among the first places even non-church goers turn to when they are in need or want a societal concern addressed.
“It is the history of the Black church universal to be involved in the community,” Goods said.
