First organized as a part of Bethel Baptist Church, Holt Street Church was built in 1913. Reverend A. W. Wilson was pastor of this church for more than 50 years during one of the most important parts of civil rights history. Participants of the Montgomery bus boycott held mass meetings and strategic planning sessions here. It is also where the Montgomery Improvement Association held its first mass meeting and Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his first speech as MIA president.