6th Mount Zion Baptist Church

6th Mount Zion Church was saved by being moved when the Interstate divided Jackson Ward

NPS Photo/Maggie L. Walker NHS

Quick Facts

Location:

Jackson Ward

Significance:

Historic Jackson Ward Church

Designation:

National Register of Historic Places

MANAGED BY:

6th Mount Zion Church

Sixth Mount Zion was home to one of the most celebrated African American preachers of the 19th century, the Reverend John Jasper. Reverend Jasper and several other organizers founded Sixth Mount Zion in an abandoned Confederate horse stable on Brown’s Island in 1867. They moved to their present location at 14 Duval Street around 1869 and built the current sanctuary in the late 1880s. The contractor who oversaw the construction of the church was George W. Boyd, an African American contractor who was considered to be the leading African American contractor in Richmond during the late 1800s. Sixth Mount Zion’s celebrated pastor became nationally known for his sermon “De Sun Do Move,” initially delivered in 1878. Jasper would deliver the sermon over 250 additional times in several states and even once before the state legislature of Virginia. Reverend Jasper died in 1901. The Sixth Mount Zion Baptist Church is listed on both the state and national historic registries.