Thankful Baptist Church

Thankful Baptist Church is a brick Gothic-style church completed in 1881 on a small grassy hill northeast of downtown Rome, Georgia. It has stepped wall buttresses, lancet-arched stained glass windows with hood moldings, a round window above the main entrance, and a corner bell tower with a spire. Inside, the sanctuary keeps its original wooden pews, stained glass, and pressed-metal ceiling. A 1976 renovation refinished the pews, added heating and cooling, and remodeled several rooms. The congregation holds a distinct place in local history as the first independent church for black citizens in Rome. Black members had worshipped with the white Rome Baptist Church, held separate services in its basement in the early 1850s, formally organized separately in 1867, and finished a permanent building in 1869. The present church replaced that building on the same site. Members founded other area churches, and the congregation included Reverend Jefferson Milner, who also founded the Rome High and Industrial School, along with doctors, lawyers, and teachers.