What is History? Is it a chronological recording of events? Does it include the forces shaping those events? Mount Calvary 's earliest history has been gathered from the notes and recollections of now deceased members, from interviews with senior church members and from existing documents and records. Accordingly, it is inevitable, this history as we know it, reflects the memories, the perspectives and the interpretations of events of both the people who shaped the history and those who gathered it.
Mount Calvary Baptist Church is the oldest African American church in the state of Arizona. Mount Calvary was founded in 1900 when Rev. Bell, a Baptist missionary, arrived in Tucson , then just a small community in the “Arizona Territory”. Rev. Bell conducted services within the black community, and under his leadership ten men and women organized a mission to continue the ministry he inspired.
Thus was the Baptist Mission. The name, for reasons not presently known, was subsequently changed to Second Baptist Church. About 1910, the congregation adopted the name Mount Calvary Baptist Church which has since remained. By the time Arizona became an official state of the United States on February 14th, 1912, this mission church had a Deacon ministry and a Sunday school which were already two (2) years old.
The members of the mission early reorganized two specific needs – physical site for worship and a permanent minister. The Reverend Vance Cole was the first pastor called as Shepard for the fellowship, arriving in 1901.
Worship services were initially conducted in a building at North 7th Avenue and East 7th street near the Southern Pacific Railroad station. This building was shared with the Methodist Church. A few years later, the church moved to the southwest corner of 9th Avenue and West 5th Street.
Sometime between 1912 and the early 1920's, land was purchased on the southwest corner of North 10th Avenue and West 4th Street where the congregation built its' first edifice and parsonage.
Reverend P.B. Cornelius was leading the congregation at the time of the land purchase and is credited with starting the first building fund for church property construction. The structure at 10th and 4th (which still stands) served the membership until the mid 1950's when the church building at 210 East Lester was constructed. The Lester street edifice was completed in February of 1956. Additions to the fellowship Hall were completed in the late 1980's.
As the twentieth century closed and Mount Calvary approached its' 100th birthday, Mount Calvary recalled the tenures of seventeen (17) different pastors.
1900 Reverend Bell
1901 Reverend Vance Cole
1908 Reverend James
1912 Reverend Humphrey
1916 Reverend N. Ewell
1919 Reverend Humphrey (called a 2nd time)
1920 Reverend P.B. Cornelius
1932 Reverend A.C. Dones
1937 Reverend Hilson
1937 Reverend Charles B. Hodge
1943 Reverend A.G. Kendrick
1949 Reverend T.S. Jackson
1966 Reverend James Sally
1969 Reverend Lloyd Hall
1978 Reverend T. Ellsworth Gantt, III
1991 Reverend Anthony Moss
1994 Reverend Vernon P Howard Jr.
1998 Reverend Rickey Bernard Harvey
