Black Bottom House of Prayer

The church at the corner of Westmoreland Drive and Bentley Street has stood for nearly a century in what was once “Black Bottom,” part of the African American neighborhood of Parramore. Its first congregation, the Pleasant Hill Colored Methodist Episcopal Church which originated in 1916, held concerts and entertainments to raise money needed for construction. They laid the church cornerstone in 1927 and changed their name to Carter Tabernacle Colored Methodist Church.

One member recalled the women of the church holding lanterns for the men working on the church construction in the dark after their day’s work on their regular jobs. Like Carter Tabernacle CME, many black congregations raised funds to build their own church structure and physically constructed the building themselves. Once built, the churches would serve as the religious entity, community meeting center, and school for the local African American community.

By 1935 the congregation numbered about three hundred and in 1945 the church added a Sunday School Annex. In 1976, the Carter Tabernacle congregation left Parramore for a new church in Washington Shores and a later congregation gave it the name Black Bottom House of Prayer in respect to the building’s past. The masonry vernacular architecture is enhanced with Gothic Revival elements such as the bell tower, gothic pointed vents, closed buttresses, and long narrow glass windows.

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SOURCE: CityOfOrlando.gov

Black Bottom House of Prayer

Rebuilding & Restoring:  Building for Good is helping a historic Orlando church bring faith and support to a strong-rooted community in need of healing and hope. 

Built in 1925, the Black Bottom House of Prayer of Orlando is possibly the oldest church building in Orlando’s Black community of Parramore.  Pastor Dana Jackson purchased the church in 2015 with a mission to serve the community and meet the needs of at-risk children with ADHD through her National ADHD Foundation.  The church is also home to the Mr. Keys Music School, which was founded in 2017 to honor the legacy of Pastor Jackson’s late son. 

Since purchasing the church in 2015, Pastor Jackson had been raising funds for the significant repairs that were needed.  Simultaneously, she was trying to obtain a historical designation to preserve the civil rights history of the church.  At the end of 2019, in the midst of historical preservation efforts, the entire church roof collapsed. 

Claramargaret Groover—a B4G volunteer lawyer from the Becker law firm in Orlando—is helping Pastor Jackson navigate the legal landscape of insurance claims and ongoing construction law needs to repair the roof and begin to restore the building.

When restored, Pastor Jackson’s historic Black Bottom church will continue to offer support services to the community, will provide a space for children with ADHD to receive services, and will provide free music lessons and scholarship opportunities to local students at the Mr. Keyz Music School.

To support restoration efforts, please donate through the Cash app at “$blackbottomprayer.”

SOURCE: building4good.org