TAMPA, Fla. — In downtown Tampa, the historic St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church served as a catalyst for change.

“The church has always been the church of civil rights,” said longtime St. Paul AME member Pete Edwards.

The century-old church on 506 E. Harrison St. looks a lot different on the inside. The building has become a community center in an affordable housing development. One church pew remains.

“Sometimes in my darkest moments I come,” Edwards said. “I meditate upstairs or I sit here.”

The single pew and the outside facade take visitors back to when St. Paul AME was thriving.

The church was founded in 1870 by a former slave. Rev. Thomas Warren Long is said to have walked from Brooksville to Tampa while preaching. He originally organized the church at the corner of Tampa and Harrison Street.

It grew from a simple hut made of palmettos and brush to the largest building owned by African Americans in the downtown area. A wealthy Black landowner, Fortune Taylor, provided the money for the property.

Edwards remembers hearing about and seeing some of the movers and shakers who visited during segregation. It's said that educator Mary McLeod Bethune, actor Paul Robeson, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Rev. Jesse Jackson, baseball great Jackie Robinson, and civil rights leader Rosa Parks visited the church at one time.

“It was so many leaders, at times we couldn’t put one on top of the other,” Edwards said.

As a NAACP civil rights lawyer, Thurgood Marshall organized a lawsuit at the church to provide equal pay to Black teachers. Later, Marshall would become the first African American Supreme Court Justice.

Civil rights activist Clarence Fort led a march from the St. Paul to the Woolworth store for a sit-in.

“We had to stay on the sidewalk,” Fort said. “Be quiet. No playing around. No horse play.”

He was leading a demonstration so blacks could sit at the all-white lunch counter.

“We made a lot of progress,” Fort said.

At one time, St. Paul AME was full of members. But by early 2000, church membership was dwindling. And the place was falling apart.

After the final Sunday service, developers from Sage Partners stepped in to save the landmark and restore the church to its original beauty.

“We’re happy that we were able to restore it, but most of all happy that we can tell the stories,” said President of Sage Partners Debra Koehler.

There is even a walk of legends to honor the church’s role in civil rights.

Pete Edwards passes by it often. He lives in the new affordable housing development next door. And on Sundays, Edwards goes to see his church family at the new St. Paul AME.

“We believe in our hearts that the best is yet to come because we’re standing on God’s word,” said the new St. Paul AME Pastor Patrick Crews.

The congregation now worships on 42nd Street in East Tampa.

It’s a smaller congregation, but they’re bonded by their faith and the rich history of the church — no matter what the location.