Second Ward · 3rd Street/Convention Center
Grace A.M.E. Zion Church
Dedicated in 1902 to a William W. Smith design, Grace A.M.E. Zion is the last church building left from the Brooklyn neighborhood, still standing on South Brevard Street.
- Historical
Hours & practicals
- Hours
- No hours published. Their site, brooklyncollectiveclt.org, is the only source.
- Address
- 219 S Brevard St, Charlotte, NC 28202, 28202
- From your base
- Sorts every list here by walk time.
The take
Grace grew out of Clinton Chapel A.M.E. Zion Church, Charlotte's first Black church, when twenty-eight temperance-minded members withdrew in December 1886 and bought this South Brevard Street lot the following August. The late Gothic Revival brick church, dedicated July 13, 1902, was designed and built by Grace member William W. Smith, Charlotte's first Black architect, and its congregation included figures like barber-entrepreneur Thad Tate and Dr. J.T. Williams, U.S. consul to Sierra Leone. When urban renewal razed Brooklyn in the 1960s most parishioners were displaced to west Charlotte, but the building survived — the only religious edifice left from the city's largest historic Black neighborhood.
Questions people ask
What is the history of this building?
Built in 1902 after the congregation, founded in 1887, outgrew its first site. The cornerstone reads 'God, Religion, Temperance', and the building was funded partly by community fish fries and ice cream socials.
Why did the congregation leave?
Charlotte's 1960s urban renewal demolished the Brooklyn neighbourhood around it. Most of the congregation relocated to west Charlotte; the building stayed standing.
Heritage context
Grace AME Zion Church
Active today
Grace AME Zion Church — church, appearing in the Charlotte record across 2 documented year(s).
Check in
Your passport…
Sources
- Facts — hl.mecknc.gov, verified August 2026
- deepCut — the guide’s own research notes — no published source, August 2026 — not independently verified
Sources disagree on facts.url: The link goes to the building’s current operator, not to the congregation.
- https://www.brooklyncollectiveclt.org/thegrace — brooklyncollectiveclt.org (The page of The Brooklyn Collective, which now operates the 1902 building as an event venue. It is the official page FOR THE BUILDING this record is about.)
Similar nearby
The neighborhood
The 15 things this place connects to in the guide's map of the town — one step out, and nothing beyond it.
District
located in
Categories
serves
People
associated with
Eras
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Story threads
associated with
See Grace A.M.E. Zion Church on the wiki, with every connection listedArriving in Second Ward? The first-hour guide