| 5500 Scovill Ave., Cleveland, OH |

Founded in 1849 to counteract racism within Cleveland’s First Baptist Church, which began denying membership to African Americans, Shiloh is Cleveland’s first African American Baptist church and the city’s second oldest Black church.

Shiloh’s building was originally constructed in 1906 for the B’nai Jeshurun Temple congregation and is a Neo-Classical monument designed by Harry Cone, resplendent with an enormous stained-glass dome that spans most of the sanctuary. The building sold to Shiloh in 1923. The sale of Jewish synagogues to Black churches was common in Cleveland and has become representative of the strong historical and cultural connection between Cleveland’s Jewish and African American communities. Shiloh has been a bedrock of Cleveland’s Central neighborhood, and the larger Cleveland community. Deeply involved in the Civil Rights Movement, Shiloh has hosted Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Jesse Jackson, Louis Stokes, Carl Stokes, and Al Sharpton and continues to play a key role in the community through the numerous social services it provides.

CRS assisted Shiloh in its plaster repair and stained-glass dome restoration project, which was completed in 2026. In 2022, CRS’s Sacred Landmarks Support Initiative committee completed a pro-bono comprehensive building conditions assessment for Shiloh, which revealed urgent life safety issues related to the church’s stained-glass dome and was in imminent danger of falling. With Shiloh having successfully raised $150,000 from the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Preserving Black Churches grant program, CRS partnered with the City of Cleveland Landmarks Commission to secure an additional $36,481 through the Ohio History Connection’s Certified Local Government (CLG) grant program to support the project.

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