Mason Temple, located in Memphis, Tennessee, is a Christian international sanctuary and central headquarters of the Church of God in Christ, the largest African American Pentecostal group in the world. The building was named for Bishop Charles Harrison Mason, founder of the Church of God in Christ, who is entombed in a marble crypt inside the Temple.
Mason Temple was the site of Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1968 "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech the night before his assassination.
Mason Temple was founded by Charles Harrison Mason (1864-1961). This church's denomination, Church of God in Christ, also known as C.O.G.I.C, grew fast in Memphis, Tennessee and eventually spread to other parts of the world such as Latin America and Asia. [1] Mason Temple was the largest church building owned by a predominantly black Christian denomination in the United States at its opening.
Born in 1864 to former slaves, Mason has founded the largest Pentecostal denomination in the U.S. which has more than 7.5 million members. [1] Mason obtained a preaching license from Mount Gayle Missionary Baptist Church in Little Rock, Arkansas. He was then cast out for preaching about holiness and sanctification. With the help of exiled members, Mason established the Church of God in Christ. It consisted of 110 churches spread across Mississippi, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. Around that time, Mason attended the Azusa Street Revival where he was taught that he would receive the act of speaking in tongues once baptized in the Holy Spirit. [1] On that night, he spoke in tongues.
After he returned, he found himself in a disagreement about the anointing of the Holy Spirit which led to another split in the church. He took 10 churches with him and kept the Church of God in Christ name.
Mason spent most of his years teaching in Arkansas. He came to Memphis in 1907 attend the first meeting of the Pentecostal General Assembly of the Church of God in Christ. [1]
By 1997, the denomination grew to 5.2 million members.
In the 1950s and 1960s, Mason Temple became a critical destination for many civil rights events in Memphis. Martin Luther King Jr., Andrew Young, and Ralph Abernathy were among the many black leaders who came to Memphis to assist the 1,300 protesting sanitation workers who usually met at the church. [2] Together, they fought for better working conditions for black sanitation workers as they earned low wages and were treated differently from the white workers. Martin Luther King Jr. later delivered his famous last speech: "I've Been to the Mountaintop" on April 3, 1968. The next day King was assassinated outside of his room at the Lorraine Motel. A plaque on an exterior wall near the entrance to the church details the event.
Charles H. Mason started building Mason Temple in 1940 to replace the original "Tabernacle" which burned down in 1936. [3] He assigned Riley F. Williams as the chairman of the building commission, Ulysses Ellis Miller as the supervisor of construction, and Henry Taylor as the architect. When construction of the Temple began, the church didn't have much in its building-fund treasury, so members and local citizens helped the church raise enough money to fund the making of the new temple.
Mason Temple is a three-story building made from brick, stone, steel, and concrete. [4] The main auditorium seated five thousand people while the balcony and the assembly room could sit up to two thousand people each. The building included a salon, nursery, baggage-check registration room, photographic booth, first aid and emergency ward, and also a post office. [4]
The Church of God in Christ (COGIC) is an international Holiness–Pentecostal Christian denomination, and a large Pentecostal denomination in the United States. Although an international and multi-ethnic religious organization, it has a predominantly African-American membership based within the United States. The international headquarters is in Memphis, Tennessee. The current Presiding Bishop is Bishop John Drew Sheard Sr., who is the Senior Pastor of the Greater Emmanuel Institutional Church of God in Christ of Detroit, Michigan. He was elected as the denomination's leader on March 27, 2021. On November 12, 2024, Bishop Sheard was re-elected by acclamation to serve another four-year term as the presiding bishop and chief apostle of the denomination.
Temple of Deliverance Church of God in Christ is a Pentecostal church located in Memphis, Tennessee. It was founded March 6, 1975, by the late Bishop Gilbert E. Patterson. The church's current pastor is Milton Hawkins. The Temple of Deliverance Church of God in Christ is one of the largest churches in the city of Memphis and the Church of God in Christ denomination.
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Charles Price Jones Sr. was an American religious leader and hymnist. He was the founder of the Church of Christ (Holiness) U.S.A.
Bishop Charles Harrison Mason Sr. was an American Holiness–Pentecostal pastor and minister. He was the founder and first Senior Bishop of the Church of God in Christ, based in Memphis, Tennessee. It developed into what is today the largest Holiness Pentecostal church denomination and one of the largest predominantly African-American Christian denominations in the United States.
Gilbert Earl Patterson was an American Holiness Pentecostal leader and pastor. He served as the founding pastor of the Temple of Deliverance COGIC Cathedral of Bountiful Blessings, one of the largest COGIC churches in the Eastern United States, from 1975 to 2007. He also served as the Presiding Bishop the Church of God in Christ (COGIC), a 6 million-member Holiness Pentecostal denomination from 2000 to 2007.
The Assemblies of God USA (AG), officially The General Council of the Assemblies of God, is a Pentecostal Christian denomination in the United States and the U.S. branch of the World Assemblies of God Fellowship, the world's largest Pentecostal body. The AG reported 2.9 million adherents in 2022. In 2011, it was the ninth largest Christian denomination and the second largest Pentecostal denomination in the United States. The Assemblies of God is a Finished Work denomination, and it holds to a conservative, evangelical and classical Arminian theology as expressed in the Statement of Fundamental Truths and position papers, which emphasize such core Pentecostal doctrines as the baptism in the Holy Spirit, speaking in tongues, divine healing and the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.
The Memphis sanitation strike began on February 12, 1968, in response to the deaths of sanitation workers Echol Cole and Robert Walker. The deaths served as a breaking point for more than 1,300 African American men from the Memphis Department of Public Works as they demanded higher wages, time and a half overtime, dues check-off, safety measures, and pay for the rainy days when they were told to go home.
"I've Been to the Mountaintop" is the popular name of the final speech delivered by Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr., an American civil rights activist, was fatally shot at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968, at 6:01 p.m. CST. He was rushed to St. Joseph's Hospital, where he died at 7:05 p.m at age 39. He was a prominent leader of the civil rights movement and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who was known for his use of nonviolence and civil disobedience. James Earl Ray, a fugitive from the Missouri State Penitentiary, was arrested on June 8, 1968, at London's Heathrow Airport, extradited to the United States and charged with the crime. On March 10, 1969, he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 99 years in the Tennessee State Penitentiary. He later made many attempts to withdraw his guilty plea and to be tried by a jury, but was unsuccessful. Ray died in prison in 1998.
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Ozro Thurston Jones Sr. was a Holiness Pentecostal denomination leader and minister, who was the second Senior Bishop of the Church of God in Christ, Inc. (1962–1968), succeeding Bishop Charles Harrison Mason, who was the founder. The Church of God in Christ (COGIC) is the fourth largest denomination in the United States, being in the Holiness Pentecostal tradition.
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James Oglethorpe Patterson Jr. was a Holiness Pentecostal minister in the Church of God in Christ and a former mayor of Memphis, Tennessee, the first African-American to hold the office.
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Memphis, Martin, and the Mountaintop: The Sanitation Strike of 1968 is a 2018 children's picture book told in poetry and prose by writer Alice Faye Duncan and illustrator R. Gregory Christie, published by Calkins Creek.
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Holiness Pentecostalism is the original branch of Pentecostalism, which is characterized by its teaching of three works of grace: [1] the New Birth, [2] entire sanctification, and [3] Spirit baptism evidenced by speaking in tongues. The word Holiness refers specifically to the belief in entire sanctification as an instantaneous, definite second work of grace, in which original sin is cleansed and the believer is made holy, with the heart being made perfect in love.