The Mother African Union Church at 9th and Franklin streets in Wilmington was left gutted May 17 after an overnight fire tore through the building that housed the church since 1969.
Officials said the blaze had fully engulfed the church when firefighters responded at 3 a.m. Sunday. Fire officials were inspecting the site Monday morning.
The Wilmington congregation has a long history in the city, worshiping first at its 8th and French Street location, which was the site of the church for 156 years until 1969 when the group moved from its historic location and building to make way for the city’s urban renewal plans, according to the church website.
Also worthy of note, according to the website, was the beginning of a festival in Wilmington by, for, and with African Americans in 1814 called the Big Quarterly, which brought people of African descent together in a sense of solidarity and freedom one weekend annually. The event established Wilmington as a mecca, a hub and place of pilgrimage, for African American religious freedom.
As abolitionist movements increased, so did the Big Quarterly in Wilmington until thousands were in attendance, quite an achievement for the 1800s. The Big Quarterly, generally known as “August Quarterly” still lives on and has continuously since its inauguration in 1814, according to the congregation.
The significance of the Mother African Union Church and the Big Quarterly has a correlation with growth and development of the Underground Railroad. Historian Dr. Lewis Baldwin has said, “abolitionists and Underground Railroad conductors of the stature of Harriett Tubman and Thomas Garrett were often in the Wilmington area (for the Big Quarterly) to assist enslaved men and women who wanted to escape. The Mother African Union Church, always the focal point of Big Quarterly, became a kind of gateway to freedom,” according to the website.
The cause of the fire is still under investigation.
