Mount Zion Black Cultural Center is
building a future for the Black community of Southeast Ohio.
Reimagining History
When the Mount Zion Baptist Church of Athens, Ohio, disbanded during the early 2000s, a cultural void was left for the Black community of the Ohio River Valley. What had previously served as a social and spiritual hub deteriorated into a building no longer fit to serve the needs of the community.
Mount Zion Black Cultural Center is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization dedicated to restoring the Mount Zion Baptist Church into a vibrant community center. The center will offer educational, cultural and creative programming to support the Black community and other marginalized peoples of Southeast Ohio.
Through fundraising efforts and community engagement, Mount Zion Black Cultural Center is actively working to rehabilitate this historic building.
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Grant Award (2024)
Members of the Mount Zion Black Cultural Center receive a multimillion dollar grant from the Appalachian Downtowns and Destinations Initiative to begin rehabilitating the Mount Zion Baptist Church to pave the way for the Mount Zion Black Cultural Center.
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Rehabilitation (to date)
Just like the parishioners of Mount Baptist Zion Church, our building remains resilient through the rehabilitation process having braved persistent flooding and other severe weather that has delayed the launch of the Mount Zion Black Cultural Center. Still, we persist.
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Donate
Help amplify and safeguard one of South East Ohio's last surviving iconic Black structures—a site whose history dates to 1872.