Some churches are born in grand circumstances. First Gethsemane was born in The Bottoms, a low lying Louisville neighborhood of tenement homes, railroad tracks, and working families who carried more dignity than the world gave them credit for. What they had was each other, a village ethic, and a faith that refused to stay quiet. God, as He so often does, used an ordinary man to answer an extraordinary need.

That man was Rev. Henry Jones, a railroad switchman who walked through The Bottoms twice a day and could not shake the sense that this community deserved a church. In 1910, he rented a rundown building on South Floyd Street, furnished it with his own benches, and invited a young preacher named Rev. Rufus Hayes Hughes to come and hold revival. Four weeks. Fourteen souls. Nine charter members. On May 3, 1910, a church was born with a first Sunday offering of thirty five cents and a conviction that God had something great in mind for a people the world had overlooked.

Dr. Hughes, the first pastor, gave forty five years to proving that conviction right. He built the baptistery by hand, brick by brick, and members filled it with tubs and buckets because running water could wait but baptism could not. He walked the neighborhood every evening, a quiet but unmistakable presence on every corner. He held the church through the Depression, the flood of 1937, and a sanctuary fire in 1945 that spared the Hammond organ still in use decades later. When he died in December 1955, he left behind a people who had learned, by watching him, how to endure.

The second pastor, Dr. J. C. Harris, gave the church its permanent name, First Gethsemane, and the legal and institutional foundation it needed to stand the test of time. The third pastor, Rev. Herschel Martin, turned vision into steel and mortar, securing a new $300,000 facility on Algonquin Parkway in 1972 and moving the congregation from The Bottoms into a home worthy of its future. The fourth pastor, Dr. Walter Malone, Jr., gathered the congregation around the burning of that mortgage, a moment of pure celebration that said plainly: this church is free, and it is moving forward.

The fifth pastor, Dr. T. Vaughn Walker, arrived in 1984 and spent thirty five years turning a congregation into a movement. Ministries multiplied. Leaders were developed and sent to serve across the country and around the world. In 1995, the church ordained its first women clergy, declaring that the call of God is no respecter of gender. He left behind a congregation transformed and a legacy that stretched far beyond Louisville.

The sixth pastor, Dr. Joshua A. Harris, Sr., steadied the congregation through a global pandemic, found creative ways to keep the community connected when the doors could not stay open, and oversaw the refurbishment and redesign of the Worship Center, giving the campus a renewed presence for a new generation.

On November 27, 2025, Dr. Tariq Z. Cummings, the seventh pastor, answered the call. On April 18, 2026, this congregation ratified that election and celebrated his installation. One hundred and sixteen years after thirty five cents changed everything, First Gethsemane is still being pressed, and still producing oil.

First Gethsemane honors Rev. Mace E. Brittle Jr., Rev. Keith A. Bush, Sr., and Rev. Charles Ford, Sr., who served with faithfulness and steadiness as Interim Pastors in seasons of transition. We are equally grateful for every deacon, trustee, minister, musician, teacher, usher, and faithful member, known and unknown, who has kept the faith, kept the doors open, and kept this church moving forward across one hundred and sixteen years. This story belongs to all of them.

God has proven faithful throughout the history of First Gethsemane Baptist Church.

May He continue to guide us into a new era.

Amen.