Opened 1963 | Phone +1 313-894-5789 | |
Similar Historic Trinity Lutheran, Woodlawn Cemetery, Sacred Heart Roman C, State Savings Bank, Brewster‑Douglass Housing Projects | ||
New Bethel Baptist Church is a Baptist church located at 8430 C. L. Franklin Boulevard (also called Linwood Street) in Detroit, Michigan. It opened on March 10, 1963 at that location. The church was founded March 6, 1932. In August, 1932, Horatius "H.H." Coleman served as pastor, until 1935. In May, 1946, clergyman and minister C. L. Franklin, father of music legend Aretha Franklin, became the pastor.
Franklin served as minister of the organization until being shot in his Detroit home in 1979. Franklin remained in a coma until his death from heart failure on July 27, 1984. His funeral was held at the church. In later years, Aretha's siblings - Carolyn, Cecil, and Erma - would also have their funerals at New Bethel.
The church was where the Detroit Walk to Freedom was planned by Reverend Franklin, members of New Bethel, and Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. on June 23, 1963.
On March 29, 1969, the church was the site of a shootout between members of the Detroit Police Department and members of the Republic of New Africa, in which a police officer was killed.
In 1976, the funeral for Flo Ballard was held at the church.
Reverend Franklin's daughter, Aretha, later recorded the album, One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism, at the church, releasing the album on her Arista label in 1987, and re-released in 2003 with previously unreleased songs.