The congregation began in 1796 as a segregated enclave of a white church before independently forming under the leadership of Reverend Samuel Snowden, a formerly enslaved abolitionist, in 1818. In 1949, the church rebranded as Union UMC and relocated into an 1872 church building designed by prominent architect Alexander Rice Esty in Boston’s South End. Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune, a leading Black educator and presidential advisor, was the keynote speaker at the celebration of this move. From this location, Union UMC has continued a long history of abolition and civil rights work, including hosting the NAACP convention that voted to pursue Brown v. Board of Education and voting in 2000 to fully welcome LGBTQ individuals.

Union UMC remains a majority Black church but is becoming increasingly multicultural as membership grows. With the surrounding neighborhood experiencing gentrification, the congregation is proud to advocate for the “most marginalized and vulnerable” while standing at the “intersections of race, class, gender, sexuality, and ability.” Union UMC offers free space to a food pantry, youth groups, and LGBTQ service organizations, and utilizes the parsonage as affordable housing for BIPOC seminarians.

Union United Methodist Church received a National Fund grant of $200,000 and raised $500,000 in matching funds to support the building’s complete re-roofing and waterproofing, including shingles, gutters, flashing, downspouts, flashings, and structural repairs to trusses and rafters. The Mayor of Boston, Michelle Wu, publicly supports this project and Union UMC’s ongoing role as a community asset, and the church was able to leverage a $500,000 grant from the City of Boston’s Community Preservation Act to match the National Fund grant. 

Union UMC by Rev. Dr. Jay Williams