Bronzeville’s Morning Star Baptist Church is a Chicago landmark

Bronzeville’s Morning Star Baptist Church is one of Chicago’s newest landmarks. 

Chicago City Council voted unanimously at its regular meeting last month to grant landmark status to the 113-year-old building, 3993 S. King Dr., a former auto shop turned spiritual home to a community growing quickly amid the Great Migration. 

“Morning Star Baptist Church embodies the social history of Bronzeville's development as a ‘Black Metropolis,’” an ordinance for the landmarking reads. It was an “anchor for African Americans who settled in Chicago during a period of significant demographic change.”

An April recommendation from the Commission on Chicago Landmarks notes that the building possesses great architectural, historical and cultural value. 

When the congregation was founded in 1917, according to the report, it was a 25-member church primarily made up of recently arrived Black Southerners. 

In its early years, Morning Star’s congregation worshipped in a rented building at 3800 S. Vincennes Ave. In 1936, in the midst of the Great Depression, the church purchased its current building, an old auto and truck livery built 24 years prior.

The congregation commissioned architect Walter Thomas Bailey, the first Black architect to be registered in Illinois, to renovate the property. The renovation, the report notes, is a “unique example” of adaptive reuse in ecclesiastical architecture from that era.  In Chicago, Bailey is also known for his work on Bronzeville’s First Church of Deliverance, 4315 S. Wabash Ave. 

From 1963 to 1968, the church underwent another round of renovations by the Black-owned architectural firm Hunter, Konn & Duster and Associates, who reshaped the building in a modernist style. 

The firm designed the church’s steel structure, piers hewn from Indiana limestone and arched, cobalt-blue stained-glass windows. Inside, the “modern and dignified” sanctuary and vestibule were finished with pale-blue glazed brick, mosaic tile and varnished hardwood paneling – architectural elements the church remains known for today. 

In addition to the church’s cultural importance in the early 20th century, the report also highlights the church’s contribution to the development of gospel music. The internationally acclaimed gospel trio, the Barrett Sisters, grew up in the Morning Star congregation. They sang in the church choir as children while their father was a deacon and their mother a chorister. The sisters would go on to appear on “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson,” tour internationally and record 16 albums. They also returned regularly to Chicago to perform at Morning Star. 

“As both a spiritual home and a neighborhood landmark, Morning Star Baptist Church embodies the heritage of Chicago's Great Migration era, the cultural contributions of the Black community, and the evolution of church architecture, making it a vital piece of the city's history,” the commission’s report reads.

City landmarking means that the Commission on Chicago Landmarks will review any proposed alteration, demolition or new construction affecting specific historical features at the site. In the case of Morning Star, features protected under the landmark designation include the entire exterior of the building and historic interior spaces, including the entrance and the sanctuary. The designation also opens up opportunities for restoration funding from the city. 

Kathy Mitchell, a former congregation member, nominated the church for a landmark designation in September 2023. At a landmarks commission meeting this past January, Mitchell said members of the congregation “enthusiastically support” the pursuit of landmark status. 

“In the face of efforts to denigrate and diminish the teaching of African American history, projects such as this one illustrate the importance of preserving the experiences of everyday Black citizens and how their experiences have shaped larger historical narratives such as the Great Migration and the Civil Rights Movement,” Mitchell told meeting attendees. “Mainline Black churches such as Morning Star have played an undeniable role in the development of Chicago, the Midwest region and the entire United States of America.”

Evgenia Anastasakos contributed reporting.