Trinity Baptist Church
A Post Emancipation Congregation

Reverend Dr. Waller

Founded in June 1888, Trinity Baptist Church sprouted from a Sunday school in East Baltimore and in 1920 moved into the former St. Paul Lutheran Church building. Its founder, Reverend Dr. Gamett Russell Waller, started with 14 members. Trinity Baptist grew to become an influential congregation which helped pioneer a kindergarten teachers training program, an evening training school for ministers, and the Baptist Ministers’ Conference. Trinity also became integral in the Baltimore Civil Rights Movement. Dr. Waller was Maryland’s representative to the Niagara Movement, a national civil rights organization founded in 1905 and spearheaded by Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois that predated the NAACP.

Trinity Baptist from McMechen

Dr. Waller who co-founded Baltimore’s NAACP and the Colored YMCA with Dr. Harvey Johnson and Mr. S.S. Booker, a Trinity Baptist lay member, was 11th General President of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, and its first General Secretary. The 7th pastor, Reverend William C. Calhoun, Sr., established the first ecumenical TV broadcast ministry, Lift Every Voice, portraying the diversity of worship in black churches in 1980, and lasting nearly 25 years on Baltimore’s WMAR TV. The church is aligned with the Progressive National Baptist Convention and the American Baptist Churches, USA.

1600 Druid Hill Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21217