Free and enslaved Black parishioners founded the congregation in Georgetown in 1816 following decades of discrimination within the Methodist church. The church campus embodies excellence in Black architecture. The original church burned down in 1880, but Black artisans and clergy erected a Gothic Revival-style church in 1884. John Anderson Lankford, the founder of Washington, D.C.’s first African American architectural firm, designed a brick addition to the church in 1887. The Mt. Zion Heritage Center, built by skilled Black laborers in 1811 and purchased as a community house for the church in 1920, is the only surviving English medieval-style cottage in the capital. The church’s parsonage, where the first Black female UMC bishop was born, was designed by Black architect Calvin Thomas Stowe Brent. Mt. Zion served as a station on the Underground Railroad, and the congregation was influential in resisting the “back to Africa” movement, decrying Georgetown’s gentrification, and organizing schools. 

The Mt. Zion UMC congregation remains an active participant in community programming and activism. Along with six other churches, it runs the all-volunteer Georgetown Saturday Supper program, which serves meals to guests experiencing housing insecurity. The church also holds choir concerts, history tours, and carnivals that welcome all community members. Mt. Zion Cemetery served as the location of a National Trust HOPE Crew project in 2021, allowing a new generation of preservationists to gain hands-on experience through identifying missing graves with modern technology.

Through a National Fund grant of $100,000 and an equal amount in matching funds raised by the congregation, Mt. Zion will expand its physical capacity by upgrading spaces to be safer, more energy efficient, and more welcoming for community use. Work will include floor refurbishment and weatherproofing upgrades.

Mount Zion United Methodist Church by Rev. Selena Johnson