Tabernacle Baptist Church was organized in 1884 as a place of worship for the emerging middle class of Blacks and for students at Selma University. In May 1963 Rev. Dr. Bernard Lafayette began having mass meetings in the church, educating the young people of Selma about nonviolent resistance. These mass meetings were instrumental in laying the foundation for the fight for voting rights in Selma and the South, leading to Bloody Sunday and ultimately the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Historic Tabernacle Baptist Church was listed on the National Historic Registry of Historic Places in 2013
