Pikeville Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church | |
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| Location | E. Valley Dr., Pikeville, Tennessee |
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| Coordinates | 35°36′18″N85°11′8″W / 35.60500°N 85.18556°W Coordinates: 35°36′18″N85°11′8″W / 35.60500°N 85.18556°W |
| Area | 0.5 acres (0.20 ha) |
| Built | 1870 |
| MPS | Rural African-American Churches in Tennessee MPS |
| NRHP reference # | 99001444 [1] |
| Added to NRHP | November 30, 1999 |
Pikeville Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church is a historic African-American church on E. Valley Drive in Pikeville, Tennessee.
Pikeville is a city in Bledsoe County, Tennessee, United States. The population was 1,608 at the 2010 census. It is also the county seat of Bledsoe County.
The church was built in 1870, during Reconstruction. It was used by multiple congregations and also served as the community's black school until 1925, when a Rosenwald school (Lincoln School) was built. [2] [3] A survey of Tennessee African-American churches conducted in the 1990s identified it as the oldest extant African-American church building in the state. [2] The church still houses an active congregation. [4] It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1999. [1]
Black schools were under legal segregation in the southern United States after the American Civil War and Reconstruction era, in southern states' public policy to keep races separated and maintain white supremacy. In the United States, white opposition to African-American success resulted in only the most rudimentary schools for African Americans, as proven by Gebhart v. Belton. It often took decades after the South established public schools for systems to offer education at the high school level. Nonetheless, black teachers and students created some outstanding black high schools, including: Richmond Colored Normal School in Richmond, Virginia; Dunbar High School in Washington, D.C.; Dudley High School in Greensboro, North Carolina; Howard Academy in Ocala, Florida; and the Paul Laurence Dunbar Junior and Senior High School in Little Rock, Arkansas.
Lincoln School, also known as the Lincoln Consolidated Rosenwald School, is a former African-American school in Pikeville, Tennessee, that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Tennessee is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th largest and the 16th most populous of the 50 United States. Tennessee is bordered by Kentucky to the north, Virginia to the northeast, North Carolina to the east, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi to the south, Arkansas to the west, and Missouri to the northwest. The Appalachian Mountains dominate the eastern part of the state, and the Mississippi River forms the state's western border. Nashville is the state's capital and largest city, with a 2017 population of 667,560 and a 2017 metro population of 1,903,045. Tennessee's second largest city is Memphis, which had a population of 652,236 in 2017.
