Paradise Missionary Baptist Church celebrated its 160-year anniversary. The church was started by 12-year-old Dinah Watts, who launched a Sunday School for the Summerhill Community in 1865. The church grew and survived profound change from the post-Civil War era through Reconstruction, Jim Crow and the Civil Rights movement. Leaders at the church impacted the history they lived through. Dr Arletta Brinson from Paradise Missionary Baptist Church joins to speak about the institution’s past and future.
I asked Dr. Brinson if she had discovered any surprises as they searched the church archives. She shared that she was in awe of the young girl, Dinah Watts, and her brothers, who, immediately following the Civil War, founded a Sunday School in 1865 that became a church in 1870. She went on to share that Dinah Watts graduated from Atlanta University in 1883, her family was also involved with the founding of Southview Cemetery and after she married, Dinah Watts Pace opened an orphanage that supported over 500 children.
She also speaks about a few of the theologians who led the church from Rev. Dr. Edwin Posey Johnson to Dr. Clifford Nathaniel Ellis and their current leaders, Dr. Charles A. Harper III and Rev. S. Tarnace Watkins, Sr.
An exhibition of archives from the church is on display at the Auburn Avenue Research Library through the end of this year. On Wednesday, November 19th, led by historian Nasir Muhummad at 12NOON.
For more information on the Paradise Baptist Church