JOHNSTOWN, Pa. – On the corner of Haynes Street and Menoher Boulevard is a church founded by a group of Black Civil War veterans who moved from Maryland to Johnstown for work in 1873.
It relocated a few times through its 153-year history, but now First Cambria AME Zion Church, 409 Haynes St., has taken its place on the National Register of Historic Places.
A plaque showing the designation was unveiled Friday during a ceremony that began with prayer and singing among a group of about 50 people gathered in the church.
The ceremony honoring the church also marked the start of Johnstown’s Juneteenth celebrations through June 19.
NAACP Johnstown Branch President Alan Cashaw said honoring the history of First Cambria AME Zion Church was a “proper and respectful” beginning to the Juneteenth holiday observation.
The men who founded First Cambria AME Zion Church in 1873 worked in a tannery in Johnstown’s Woodvale section and worshipped in the loft of the tannery before outgrowing it.
“Our ancestors took hard jobs like working in the tannery and the steel mill for us to be in Johnstown,” Cashaw said.
The church was added to the registry in April based on its associations with moments of historical, national significance.
In 1923, during the Rosedale incident, when a deadly shooting of police officers sparked an ordered banishment of Black and Mexican people from Johnstown, the pastor of First Cambria AME Zion spoke to the community, “calling for peace beyond the unrest and fear,” said Barbara Zaborowski, of Pennsylvania Highlands Community College.
Zaborowski led the application process and gave a presentation Friday.
Again in 1969, when a white officer shot Timothy Perkins, a young Black man in Johnstown, “the church stepped up and called for calmer heads, and helped avoid additional violence,” Zaborowski said.
Cashaw and African-American Heritage Society member Bruce Haselrig shared lesser-known parts of the church’s importance as a pillar of the community.
When Cashaw was a Greater Johnstown High School senior in 1969, he led a school walkout, he said – to the church – after the principal prohibited students from wearing dashikis, clothing important to African American culture.
In 1984, Haselrig said, the church helped form the Johnstown Minority Scholars Club to raise awareness of academic excellence among minority students.
“It’s always been a community church,” Haselrig said. “The building is being honored, but it’s because of the things that happened here, the pastors, the leaders, the families.”