Browsing: said Professor Best. “The building was built in recognition that it would have to meet the full needs of the community.”

      In the 227 years since its birth, Mother African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church — the oldest Black church in New York State — has served as a stop on the Underground Railroad, a haven for Black artists and intellectuals during the Harlem Renaissance and an amphitheater for civil rights activism during the 1950s and ‘60s.