The First Missionary Baptist Church in Hayneville is significant for its role in the 1966 elections in Lowndes County. Local black community leaders joined with members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee to form a third party, the Lowndes County Freedom Party to run a slate of African Americans in the county’s November 1966 election. The church served as the site for the Freedom Party convention as well as a location to hold mass meetings to support the Civil Rights Movement.
The current building was constructed in 1959. It looks much as it did when it took center stage during the Lowndes County Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s.
