Some stops don’t call ahead — they just wait quietly until you stumble into their orbit. On the last morning of Alabama Road Trip #2, Dusty and I found ourselves with a little time to kill before the Dothan Visitor’s Center opened. So we did what any good backroad wanderers do: we followed the trail of historical markers we’d been bookmarking around town.
One of them led us to Cherry Street.
A quiet hill.
A red-brick church we hadn’t planned on seeing.
And a story we absolutely weren’t ready for.
Sometimes the unplanned stops are the ones that stay with you.
A Small Plot, A Big Beginning
The origins of Cherry Street AME Church go back to 1877, just twelve years after the Civil War. Newly freed Black families in Dothan were carving out space in a world that wasn’t eager to make room for them. A Black landowner donated a plot of land, and on that humble patch, a wooden church rose — first known as Gaines Chapel. Under Reverend Pryor, the congregation formally organized as the Colored Methodist Episcopal congregation.
But this wasn’t just a Sunday sanctuary. It was a schoolhouse, a gathering place, a community forum, and a refuge in a world determined to confine every other space. Black churches across the South carried that same dual identity — faith and resistance woven so tightly you couldn’t separate them.
The AME tradition itself had been born from protest. Founded in 1816 after Black congregants were segregated and mistreated in white Methodist churches, the African Methodist Episcopal denomination became a home built on dignity, agency, and spiritual independence. That same fire burned in Dothan’s small wooden chapel.
The Bricks No One Wanted to Sell
At the turn of the 20th century, the congregation had outgrown the original structure. They wanted something stronger — a church that reflected their permanence. Reverend William Jefferson Hightower took up the task around 1903, and together the congregation raised an astonishing eight thousand dollars to build a new brick church.
But when Hightower approached the only brickyard in Dothan, the owner refused.
No bricks for a Black church.
No explanation needed.
The congregation didn’t argue.
They answered.
They ordered bricks by rail from outside the city, and when the shipments arrived, the community devised a plan now immortalized in a downtown mural. Every Sunday, the children carried a brick to church. Adults carried bricks too, one by one. Without fanfare. Without permission.
The new Cherry Street AME Church was completed in 1908 — a structure built in defiance, fortified by faith, and born of hands who refused to bow. A literal monument to resilience.
The Mother Church of the Wiregrass
Cherry Street AME became known locally as the “Mother Church” — the anchor for the AME presence in the Wiregrass. During the long decades of segregation, it became a safe harbor where Black families could gather freely, organize, celebrate, learn, mourn, and strategize.
Black churches were the backbone of the Civil Rights Movement, and Cherry Street AME was no exception. It nurtured leaders, fortified spirits, and offered the one place where the community could breathe without the immediate shadow of Jim Crow pressing in.
One of its early pastors, Isaiah Hamilton Bonner, rose to become bishop over all AME churches in Alabama. During the Selma to Montgomery marches, when the state issued an injunction forbidding mass meetings in Black churches, it was Bishop Bonner who stepped in.
He famously told the hesitant pastor of Brown Chapel AME — the movement’s headquarters:
“Ain’t no white man going to tell me who can use that church.
That church was built by Black folk, for Black folk.
Now you open those doors.”
Those doors opened.
History followed.
And that backbone?
You can trace it right back to Dothan — to a red-brick church built brick-by-brick in resistance.
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Echo’s Corner: A Whisper From the Mural
If you wander downtown Dothan, you might spot a colorful mural of children walking with single bricks in their hands. It’s easy to miss if you’re not looking for it — history so often hides in the margins.
But that mural is a map, a memory, and a dare.
It’s a reminder that sometimes the smallest hands carry the heaviest pieces of the future.
And sometimes the most powerful rebellions arrive quietly, in Sunday clothes, with bricks tucked close to the chest.
— Echo
Today, the Doors Still Stand Open
Cherry Street AME Church still stands proudly on its hill, the Hammond organ pipes resting quietly inside the sanctuary. It remains a living congregation — still serving, still anchoring, still carrying on the mission of meeting the “spiritual, intellectual, physical, and emotional needs of all people.”
It may not appear in national textbooks or tourist brochures, but places like this rarely do. Their legacy isn’t a headline — it’s a heartbeat. A foundation shaped by faith and built for freedom.
Unplanned stop or not, this one was worth every minute.
There’s a funny little symmetry to this stop. As we were walking around the church, it reminded me of the story Dusty mentioned on our first Alabama trip. Her grandpa built his house in Florida the exact same way — one load of bricks at a time. He’d drive up to Alabama on weekends, buy as many bricks as he could afford, haul them home, and slowly build his future with his own two hands.
Something about that feels right.
A reminder that resilience runs in families… and sometimes the story you’re filming is already written in the people you love.
If You Go
📍 Location: Cherry Street, Dothan, Alabama
🕰️ Access: The grounds are visible from the street; services and times vary
🚗 Good to Know: Parking is easy, and the site sits in a quiet residential neighborhood
📸 Respectful Tip: This is an active congregation — photograph respectfully and avoid interfering with services
More TMP Stories From Alabama
If you love hidden histories like this one, you’ll enjoy:
- Brierfield Ironworks: The Confederate Forge That Armed a War
- Tannehill Ironworks: From Fire to Forest
- Sloss Furnaces: The Ghosts of Birmingham’s Iron Empire
- West Blocton Coke Ovens: Ruins in the Pines
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