02/17/2026
In celebration of Black History Month, we pause to reflect on the lives, faith, and resilience rooted in this sacred ground. When you visit the location of the former St. Paul’s African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Church here at Old Cahawba Archaeological Park, there is no steeple rising skyward, no roof to shelter a congregation—only scattered brick, uneven ground, and the outline of sacred space. These ruins are what remain of St. Paul’s A.M.E. Church, a place once filled with voices, resilience, and faith.
The story began in 1849, when Rev. James L.Cotten ministered to a Methodist congregation of both white and enslaved worshipers. Early services for enslaved African Americans were held beneath a cotton warehouse floor. Later, a nearby lot allowed them to build a log church of their own—though still under white supervision. After emancipation, Black residents formed an independent congregation within the A.M.E. church. When Cahawba’s white Methodists relocated, the newly formed congregation began worshiping in the vacated building, shown in the photos below, that became St. Paul’s A.M.E. Church.
What stands before us today reflects a turning point in that history. In 1954, official newspaper reports say that sparks from a nearby woods fire ignited the church’s wooden steeple. Though some have blamed the K*K, no contemporary documentation confirms that claim. Flames quickly overtook the structure, and the brick walls collapsed inward. The building that had once symbolized independence, worship, and community was reduced to the fragments you see now.
Among those shaped by this community was Sara J. Hatcher Duncan. Born in Cahawba in 1869 to parents who had lived through slavery, she began her life of service as a young girl, going door to door reading the Bible to elderly neighbors who had never learned to read. She was educated at Knox Academy in Selma beginning in 1881 and went on to become a teacher, carrying forward a lifelong commitment to education and faith.
Her work soon expanded beyond the classroom into missionary leadership within the African Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1896, she helped establish the Women’s Home and Foreign Missionary Society, serving as superintendent from 1897 to 1900 and as president in 1900. She founded the Missionary Searchlight in 1898 and authored a book in 1906 documenting A.M.E. missionary efforts. Through her leadership and influence, she came to be regarded as a pinnacle of women’s power within the A.M.E. church.
Today, as visitors view these remains at Old Cahawba Archaeological Park, the absence of walls makes the story more visible, not less. The structure is gone, but the foundation—both physical and spiritual—still anchors this place.
