Washington Chapel: Missouri's Second C.M.E. Church
Near Kansas City, Missouri
The limestone walls of Washington Chapel C.M.E.
Church in Parkville hold a deep history. Before the Civil War, Platte County was hemp country, and nearly a quarter of its residents were enslaved people who were not permitted to worship freely or assemble without white supervision. After emancipation, Parkville's Black community began gathering for worship in eighteen seventy, initially meeting at the local Presbyterian church.
They incorporated as the second Colored Methodist Episcopal congregation in all of Missouri. By nineteen oh five they had the resources to build this Late Gothic Revival limestone church, completed in nineteen oh seven. It served as the anchor of Black community life in Parkville for generations.
The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in nineteen ninety-two, and efforts to reopen and restore it have continued into recent years. It stands as one of the older African American church structures surviving in the greater Kansas City region.
