The records of Hartford Baptist Memorial Church are arranged in seven series: Church Governance and Policies, Committees and Other Church Organizations, Events and Celebrations, Services, Topical Files, Publications and Miscellaneous. Covering the years 1922 to the present, the records document the ongoing work of the church. The bulk of the records date from the 1970s, with sparse documentation for the years 1930 to 1959.
Between 1910 and 1920 the African-American population of Detroit increased from 5,741 to 40,838. Key institutions in the spiritual and social life of African Americans, African-American churches in Detroit grew in number from six in 1916 to over forty in 1926. African Americans settled on the east side of Detroit first and then migrated west, where there were no African-American churches. Rev. Edward Wendall Edwards approached the pastors of the Second Baptist Church and the Detroit Baptist Union and they both supported the establishment of a new church for the west side of Detroit. In 1917, the First Institutional Baptist Church of Detroit was organized with Rev. Edwards as its first pastor; it was the first African-American religious institution west of Woodward Avenue in Detroit.
Resigning in 1920 to do missionary work, Edwards was succeeded by Rev. Charles Andrew Hill of Detroit. Soon afterwards, the name of the church was changed to Hartford Avenue Baptist Church. One of the earliest buildings in which the church worshiped was at 6326 Hartford; in 1924 a more permanent structure was built on the corner of Hartford and Milford. By 1945, church membership was over 1,000.
Hill believed his mandate included community development and political participation. Under Hill, the church heard the politically persecuted Paul Robeson sing and heard lectures from W.E.B. Dubois in the 1950s when they were both considered subversive individuals. Hill led housing demonstrations and opened the church to union organizers from the Ford Rouge plant.
When Hill retired in 1968, Charles Gilchrist Adams was appointed pastor. Adams grew up in Hill's church and was also a very public leader. Adams had attended the University of Michigan and Harvard Divinity School and, before returning to Hartford as pastor, Adams served as pastor of the Concord Baptist Church in Boston from 1962 to 1969. Under Adams, the congregation soon doubled. In 1974, the church decided to relocate to the former Covenant Baptist Church at 18700 James Couzens Drive. The move was completed in 1977 and membership soon tripled; by 1998 the church had over 7,000 members. The name of the church was changed from Hartford Avenue Baptist Church to Hartford Memorial Baptist Church in 1981.
Adams was president of the Detroit branch of the NAACP and participated in the boycott against Dearborn merchants for not allowing nonresidents in its parks. Adams also believed in using economic power to control the environment in which the church was located and the church bought up properties around it to rent or lease to businesses in the hopes of bringing jobs to the community. Under Adams' guidance, over a dozen programs were developed to work with the community, including a free legal and medical clinic, a tutorial program, a Head Start program, a job placement agency, a crisis support line, a food co-op and a scholarship fund. An exceptionally charismatic leader, Adams was elected for a four-year term as president of the Progressive National Baptists in 1998.
