BLUE MOUNTAIN, Miss. (AP) - The 1964 rebuilding of the Antioch Missionary Baptist Church, which was burned down for hosting civil rights activities, will be commemorated with a marker on the Mississippi Freedom Trail.
The ceremony is 11 a.m. Saturday in Blue Mountain.
The church was destroyed in October of 1964 after Fannie Lou Hamer led a Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party rally there. It was one of nearly 40 churches in Mississippi that were burned or bombed during a six-month period.
A group of students and faculty from Oberlin College, calling themselves “Carpenters for Christmas, began rebuilding the North Mississippi church on Dec. 22. 1964.
By Christmas Day, they had built a foundation and four walls, and the church held its first service.
By Jan. 2, 1965, the church reopened and hosted civil rights activities.
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