A community anchor

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The Zion Baptist Church, located at the northwest corner of North Broad and Venango Streets in North Philadelphia, is a two-story brick and glass church built in 1973. It is significant as a major ecclesiastical work in the Modern style by Philadelphia’s most prominent Black architect of the post-war period, Walter R. Livingston, Jr. (1922-2011). It is largely unaltered on both the exterior and interior from its 1973 construction.

The Zion Baptist Church is also historically significant for its association with the Reverend Leon H. Sullivan (1922-2001), the nationally influential civil rights leader and social activist who led the church from 1950 until his retirement in 1988. Sullivan’s lifelong commitment to racial justice through economic advancement brought the hope of equal opportunity not just to his congregation, but to Philadelphia’s broader African American community and to disadvantaged groups across the country.

In 1972-73, Sullivan himself spearheaded the construction of the present church after a fire destroyed an older church building on site. Sullivan and the Zion Investment Associates (a venture capital company founded by Sullivan and members of the Zion Baptist congregation) raised funds for the rebuilding project and formed their own construction firm, the Progress Construction Company, which partnered with the Daniel J. Keating Company to build the church, creating dozens of jobs for Black laborers in the process. In this way, the church building itself became the physical embodiment of Sullivan’s vision of racial justice through economic advancement. Construction of the $2.5 million, 40,000 square foot building began in 1972 and was completed in September 1973. At the first official service on September 23, Sullivan hailed the church as the “new ship of Zion.”​​​

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The Zion Baptist Church continues to play an important role in the Broad, Germantown, & Erie community. 

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