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Atlanta’s New Hope African Methodist Episcopal Church dates back to 1869 when African Americans began gathering to worship at “camp meetings” at the New Hope Camp Ground.
The congregation continued meeting there until 1872, when they were given land by a white Buckhead farmer named James H. Smith, who willed three acres of his property for a church and school for “colored persons.”
The original congregation consisted mostly of recently emancipated slaves who still worked for nearby white families as farm laborers and servants. Across the street is the 1.86-acre historic New Hope Cemetery containing dozens of graves.
– Caroline Parsley, The 100 Companies