The First Baptist Institutional Church sits at the southwest corner of Martin Luther King and Memorial boulevards, the second site of the church that has survived a fire, a relocation, a condemnation and at least two rebuilds in its 140-year history.
One thing is certain, First Baptist Institutional Church is a thread woven into Lakeland’s fabric since before the town’s founding, when railroad workers built a wooden structure so their shared faith would have a home.
Today, as it has always been, it is the church for some of Lakeland’s most prominent Black leaders. But like some other churches in town, it has struggled to bring its membership back up to pre-COVID levels.
Early history
In 1882, Kentucky businessman Abraham Munn bought, site unseen, 80 acres of land, which was quickly platted into a small town.
The next year, strong Black men, many of whom were former slaves and the sons of former slaves, chopped, carved and dug out a path through the swamps and woods of Central Florida for Henry Plant’s railroad system as it stretched to the port of Tampa. They contended with the heat, snakes, bears, panthers and mosquitos as they performed the backbreaking labor that brought civilization to the unsettled land.
They worked for project manager Herbert Drane, said to be the first white man to settle in the territory of Lakeland, on his railroad crew.
Some of the men liked the little town, its small lakes and the arid land and decided to build a life and their homes in what would become Lakeland. They built homes along Lake Wire and then Lake Beulah and Lake Hunter.
Those families needed a place to attend church and their children needed a place to go to school, separate from the town’s white families and children during the era of Jim Crow.
Records show that Black residents built St. John’s Baptist Church in 1884 at the corner of West Orange Street and Lincoln Avenue on the east side of Lake Beulah — a year before the city was incorporated. St. John’s housed the first school for Lakeland’s Black children.
“Lakeland had a (Black) population in 1887 of 160,” Hetherington wrote. “They had a neat church and a good school, and were described as industrious and thrifty.”
Church records show that Reverend Peter Gant organized the church’s construction. Lakeland historian LaFrancine Burton wrote in The Ledger in 2003 that the “1887 Polk County School Board minutes show that Amos Stewart, a pioneer of this early African-American community, was appointed supervisor of the ‘Lakeland Colored School.’”
Gant remained at the pulpit until 1906. He was there when a fire engulfed the church in 1898.
According to the Lakeland Public Library, “a stove warmed the building in cold weather, which led to a fire that destroyed the structure.”
Burton reported that when the fire burned down St. John’s Baptist Church in 1898, “members built a new wood-frame sanctuary, and, they, with the help of others, also built a separate schoolhouse.”
In 1906, another fire destroyed the school, but “the charismatic and educated Rev. H.K. Moorehead was appointed pastor of the St. John’s church and, in all probability, offered the church as a temporary setting for the school. The neighborhood was eventually named for him following his death in 1916.”
His name has been alternately spelled Moorehead and Morehead, but a stained glass window in the current church uses the latter spelling. Following his death in 1916, the neighborhood was named after him and flourished until it was taken by eminent domain and torn down in the early 1970s to make way for The Lakeland Center, now called the RP Funding Center
The library reported that “it took more than twenty years to rebuild the structure. The community met in local homes and ardently fundraised.”
In 1922 a red-brick, Gothic style structure with cut-glass windows opened at 930 North Dakota Avenue (now Martin Luther King Boulevard). The first service was held in May 1922.
That is also the year the church’s name changed to First Baptist Institutional Church. The church has continuously led programs and ministries since then.
More change came in 1971, when the church was condemned and had to be torn down. Congregants attended service in the old Rochelle High School. A new, arched red brick building with stained glass windows rose up in its place, with the first services held there in August 1974.
‘Everybody looked after one another’
“We have a 140-year history, with nine pastors in those 140 years,” said Jacqueline Rose, who grew up in the church, serves as its historian and teaches Vacation Bible School in the summer. “The building is named after Rev. Paul H. Jackson. He had the longest tenure at 33 years. He baptized me.”
“And me, too,” said Terry Coney, 72, a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel and president of the NAACP Lakeland branch.
Rose, 68, is a former senior librarian for Polk County Public Schools and was the head librarian at the Fort Meade Public Library
The two longtime friends sat down with LkldNow to talk about the church and its importance to the community and their own lives. For the pair, it was children’s Sunday school that offered a solid foundation for the rest of their lives.
“Everybody in church seemed to care about you and, as a child growing up, that was very, very special.”
jacqueline rose, church historian
“I really grew up in church — it was so much fun,” Rose said. “I guess you wouldn’t think of church being fun, but I remember Sunday school … Everybody in church seemed to care about you and, as a child growing up, that was very, very special. And they always made us feel good. It was always a pleasure to be at church and participate in the inspirational choir.”
Coney said he looked up to Robert Fields, a longtime industrial arts educator for Polk County Public Schools, and other men in the church.
“You don’t really even realize the impact these adults have on you as a role model,” Coney said. “The men were strong leaders in the community. They helped me into adulthood and even through the military. Sitting in this room and seeing these pictures, it really helps me.”
Overlooking Coney and Rose as they spoke were portraits of the nine pastors that have served the church since 1884:
- 1884–1906 — Peter Gant
- 1906–1916 — Hezekiah Morehead
- 1916–1920 — William Smith
- 1920–1955 — Horace Stephens
- 1956–1957 — J.E. Harris
- 1957–1990 — Paul Jackson
- 1990–1995 — Melvin Parham
- 1995–1996 — Johnnie Horton
- 1998–2024 — Alex Harper, Sr.
Looking through old black-and-white pictures, Rose and Coney pointed to family members and old friends.
“That’s my grandmother,” Coney said, looking at a picture from 1971 and seeing other people he remembered. “This lady is still alive — she’s 107 years old. She lives in a nursing home in Orlando, but sometimes people bring her back here for church.”
Rose pointed to her uncle in the photograph.
In one photograph, all the women were beautifully dressed, including fancy hats.
“In the 50s and 60s, it was almost like a fashion show. The women wore these fabulous hats.’
Terry coney, longtime congregant
“In the 50s and 60s, it was almost like a fashion show,” Coney said. “The women wore these fabulous hats. I wear a suit and tie when I come to church on Sunday.”
He said some Sundays, especially around Easter and Christmas, it’s almost like walking up bustling Dakota Avenue again when he was young, filled with shops and businesses, to attend services.
Both remembered being assigned speeches to give during church when they were children. Rose said she forgot one week that it was her turn. The Sunday School teacher showed up at her house that day, gave her the assignment and reminded her to be at church and on time the next week.
“That was something that was expected,” she said, adding that the speeches were “about Jesus, things you needed to know about God. There was always a lot of kids participating at that time.”
Coney said back then, the neighborhood was more of a community because the people you saw at church were the people you went to school with and the people you ran into at shops.
“Sunday school was almost like an extension of regular school because one of my Sunday School teachers, she was also my sixth-grade teacher,” Coney said. “It was an experience. You had a great sense of community; everybody looked after one another.”
Rose said sleeping in was unthinkable back then. “Being at church on Sunday was expected,” she said.
The church elders always sat in the same seats. And while their names were not on pews, people knew to defer to the longtime members.
“Elderly people had their seats they sat in every week and you knew not to sit in those seats,” he said.
Lagging attendance
Both Coney and Rose say church attendance has dropped off since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic when business, schools and even churches closed their doors for months to prevent spreading the disease. Coney said on Sundays, about 40-50 people regularly attended, with others coming and going sporadically throughout the year.
“It’s declined greatly after COVID,” Coney said. “I think Zoom didn’t help.”
Rose agreed.
“Technology is a contributor to (declining) church attendance because people think, ‘I can be home and hear the service,’” Rose said. “It’s available, you don’t have to travel. For our much older adults, they don’t have to drive at night. We have to get our younger people to know that participation is what’s wanted, to see people’s faces. Seeing people in person builds fellowship, builds community. God wants us to fellowship one to another.”
She said they’ve seen a tapering off of attendance by young people, too. In the past, they’ve offered interesting programs for their youth groups.
“We’ve kind of been like stagnant,” Rose said. “We had speakers come in to talk to them about surrounding yourself with encouraging people or striving to a higher high.”
Richard Wilder, who belongs to the local Buffalo Soldiers group, has a ranch and they took students to go horseback riding there, throw horseshoes and enjoy nature. Coney and Rose said the students loved it.
Coney said people may maintain a spiritual connection by watching online, but not a physical connection to people.
“Just like with other things, young people don’t have an ownership with church,” he said. “It’s almost like we have to start over.”
Rose said that during Vacation Bible Schools, they’ve gone out into the community to sign kids up to attend.
“We have to come up with a way of what is valuable to the new online generation, that embraces the values of the older generations,” Rose said. “We just have to keep working on it and hope that they will love the church the way we love the church. We look for them to come back to us.”
If You Go
Where:
- First Baptist Institutional Church, 930 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
Services:
- Sunday church school — 9 a.m.
- Sunday morning worship — 10 a.m.
- Monday hour of prayer — Noon
- Wednesday mid-week service and Bible study — 6 p.m
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