Macedonia Baptist Church will celebrate nearly a century as a house of worship and center of the African- American community in Five Points with an open invitation to the public to join services at 10:30 a.m. Sunday.
Macedonia will remember 90 years as a community anchor, during which legendary leaders of the civil-rights movement gathered here with Denverites to call on each other and the Lord to change a country.
Macedonia has played host to such greats as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks, as well as gifted preachers of the era, such as the Rev. Frederick Sampson of Detroit and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright of Chicago.
“Things are much better than they were,” said Macedonia’s 86-year-old pastor, the Rev. Willard Johnson, who attended Macedonia as a young man. “Those who have progressed should reach back now and help others up the ladder. We need to build across the artificial barriers of race and education.”
The new challenge for Macedonia, Johnson said, is to once again forge a cohesive community that includes many new Spanish-speaking Latino immigrants as well as Caucasian newcomers redeveloping the area.
Macedonia began as a small church in 1917 at 26th and Arapahoe streets. The church later moved to nearby Williams Street, and then, as the population shifted, it took residence in its current home at 3240 Adams St.
At the “Legacy of Service” event Sunday, the Rev. James Peters, a participant in the civil-rights movement, will be the guest speaker.
