Status: Preserved
Address: 930 / 938 Mason Street, Memphis
Built: 1940, completed 1945
Architectural Style: Art Moderne
Original Function/Purpose: Church
History: Bishop Charles H. Mason was born into slavery near Bartlett, TN and founded the Church of God in Christ in 1897, establishing his congregation in Memphis. The church had, and still has, a predominantly African-American congregation. COGIC serves as the spiritual center of a denomination that has grown to nearly 6.5 million members on six continents. The construction of what would become Mason Temple began in 1940; progress was slow during the war years due to shortage of supplies including steel, but the building was dedicated in December 1945 during that year’s COGIC convocation. The architect for the project was William Harrison Taylor, but aside from the fact that he was an Elder in the church, sadly little is known of his life and career. The interior’s sophisticated design results in “a decidedly compact space that paradoxically” holds “a very large number of seats.” The church was a center of organization for the Sanitation Workers strike of 1968 in Memphis. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I’ve been to the Mountaintop” speech here to a capacity audience the day before he was assassinated, and advocates have proposed that the church be declared a national monument. The church has been named to the new, multi-state U.S. Civil Rights Trail, along with Clayborn Temple, the Lorraine Motel, and other notable sites. In 2018 the City of Memphis designated this property as a site on the Memphis Heritage Trail.
City Council District: 6
Super District: 8
County Commission District: 8