Sunday is when paradise is preached and seen.
They come dressed in their Sunday best. Starched collars and scuffed shoes. Wide-brimmed hats blooming like flowers across the sanctuary. An elder humming low, as if tuning her soul like a string before the choir rose.
The beauty of the stained glass fell across the pews like God’s own quilt. When the organ released that first long chord, the kind that makes old bones remember youth, the church swelled with memory.
They had always gathered, though the church changed names like seasons. Once Pleasant Grove. Then Reed Street. Later Paradise. But its spirit stayed grounded in one courageous act.
It began in 1865, when the smoke of the Civil War had barely lifted and hope was still a fragile thing. A 12-year-old Black girl named Dinah Watts Pace refused to wait on miracles. She made one. With no steeple, no choir, no treasury, only conviction, she walked the dirt roads of Summerhill and gathered the children no one claimed. Hungry, barefoot, wandering the streets like wind. She sat them on the corner of Richmond and Martin streets and spoke to them of Jesus. Not as a distant figure in a stained-glass window, but as a friend who knew hunger. Who knew loneliness.
They gathered there on Sundays, believing that God had not forgotten Summerhill.
That gathering became The Pleasant Grove Sunday School. No pews. Just planks laid across crates. No choir robes. Just ragged dresses and patched trousers. Yet their singing floated like bells over the Georgia dust. It planted something deep and holy.
Years passed. More souls came. In 1870, the Rev. Robert Epps arrived from Athens with little formal schooling but great faith. He went door to door, inviting neighbors into fellowship. On Oct. 26 of that year, they made it official: Pleasant Grove Baptist Church was born.
Soon after, a white real estate agent surprised them by gifting a brick church on Reed Street. The people cleared trees, built houses around it like ribs around a beating heart. They renamed themselves Reed Street Baptist Church, but heaven already knew their names.
Pastors came like chapters in a long testimony. The Rev. C. O. Jones tended the congregation for twenty-four years, giving structure and strength. Edwin Posey Johnson, scholar and spiritual architect, built with granite and gospel alike. Ralph Riley offered rhythm and renewal, giving young people reason to sing.
Then came Clifford Nathaniel Ellis. His ministry stretched 46 years, and his presence felt like an oak planted by living waters. Under his watch, the church extended beyond walls. Bus ministries rolled through neighborhoods gathering children. An educational building rose. New auxiliaries formed. He spread the gospel on WSB, one of the first African American gospel radio broadcasts in the nation. He preached in sanctuaries and auditoriums once closed to his people and helped integrate the Atlanta Municipal Auditorium, turning silence into praise.
In 1965, when the city of Atlanta claimed the church’s land through eminent domain to build Atlanta Fulton County Stadium, some feared it was the end. Ellis saw only transition. He led the congregation to a new home in the northwest community and spoke plainly: “We are not losing. We are moving.” They renamed themselves Paradise Baptist Church.
After him came new shepherds. The Rev. Edward Williams Lumpkin, born of the same soil, dreamed in principles of fellowship, evangelism, doctrine, and stewardship. The Rev. James Bullard and the Rev. James Calloway continued the work of reaching and growing. The Rev. Jesse J. Walker II expanded music, media, and ministry with modern tools, building newsletters and websites to carry the message further.
Some years were smooth, others uneasy. Votes were cast. Leaders came and went. Yet Paradise stood. Faith did not fracture. As the Rev. S. Tarnace Watkins Sr., the church’s executive pastor, shared at this past Sunday’s service celebrating the church’s milestone: “From the very beginning, Paradise has been about more than worship. It has been about leadership. Dinah Watts Pace, often called the ‘Mother of Orphans,’ founded schools, cared for children, and provided stability when few others could. In every season since, Paradise has been both a sanctuary and a launchpad.”
Under Charles A. Harper III, Paradise entered a new chapter rooted in preservation and purpose. A son of Atlanta, he saw the church as both living body and living record.
“It means survival, perseverance, and calling,” he said. “Paradise was founded in 1865, just after the Civil War, when freedom was still fragile. For 160 years, God’s providence has sustained us, not just to exist as a church but to serve our people. Through Reconstruction, Jim Crow, the Civil Rights Movement, and the challenges of today, Paradise has been a lighthouse.”
He reminded his congregation and city alike that history is the compass for the future. “When we preserve the stories of Paradise,” he said, “we are not just cataloging events. We are passing on a road map of resilience. Our history shows that our grandparents and great-grandparents faced impossible odds, too, but they endured through faith and community.”
Now, after 160 years, that endurance will speak aloud through the Auburn Avenue Research Library. As Shaneeka Favors-Welch, one of the anniversary co-chairs, shared, bringing the church’s history to Auburn Avenue is a full-circle moment for the community.
“This exhibit ensures that our foundational story, woven into the city’s fabric, is permanently preserved and shared with a broader audience,” Favors-Welch said. “It is a powerful lesson for all generations about resilience, self-determination, and the enduring power of community.”
So the same spirit that began on a dusty corner with a young girl and a handful of hungry children now stands in glass cases and photographs, in letters and hymnals, bearing witness.
Paradise has been many things. Sunday school. Brick church. Granite fortress. Bus station. Radio beacon. Refuge. Memory singing itself alive.
And still, after 160 years, they gather on Sundays, hand stretched out, believing that God has not forgotten them, and knowing now that the world remembers, too.
