Liberty Baptist Church at 701 Oak St. Liberty Baptist was organized June 13, 1865 in a small brick building at Chestnut and Canal Sts. By 1866, a frame church was erected on 7th and Oak, which was torn down in 1880 to build a new brick one. Liberty, the first African- American Baptist church in Evansville, was formed in March 1865. After the Civil War many former slaves traveled north in hope of a better life. In Indiana, Evansville was the main destination of these immigrants. The Liberty Baptist congregation was organized on June 13, 1865, a 40x50 church on lots on 7th and Oak. This Gothic Revival building serves the oldest black congregation in the city. A cyclone destroyed that building in May 1887, but only seven months later, the present church building had risen. Baptisttown was the name given to the surrounding neighborhood (now substantally leveled) where Evansvilles largest black community settled. Its pastor from 1882 to 1929 was former slave J.D. Rouse, who came to the city in 1865 the year that liberty was organized. A housing corporation established by Liberty Baptist sponsored the adjacent Liberty Terrace apartments. This contemporary 54 unit complex was completed in the early 1980s to house elderly and handicapped persons. This photograph appears in We Ask Only a Fair Trial, p. 75, attributed to the Indiana Magazine of History, December 1980.