Vancouver Avenue First Baptist Church is a revered institution, consistently serving as a hub of political, civic, and spiritual life in Portland’s African-American community since its inception. Started as the First Baptist Church of Burton Homes in 1944 Vancouver, Washington, most of the early congregants were African-Americans from the South who migrated to the Pacific Northwest seeking employment in the defense industry during World War II. Pictured here is the church at its original location in the Burton Homes housing project's community room at 519 Hathaway Drive. Burton Homes was a federal wartime housing project managed by the Vancouver Housing Authority (Washington state). Most of the people in this 1945 photo of an early service were employees of the Kaiser Shipyards. The church moved to the Bagley Downs housing project later that year, then to Vanport City in 1946, and finally to the Albina neighborhood in Portland after Vanport was flooded in 1948. The current building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places for its significance to the history of civil rights in Oregon.