Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church is a historic African Methodist Episcopal Church congregation in Mobile, Alabama, United States. Emanuel AME began when church trustees purchased a vacant lot for their church in 1869, as African Americans in Mobile established their own congregations following the American Civil War. The trustees completed a frame building in that same year. The frame building was altered in 1881 when James F. Hutchisson, a locally prominent white architect, was hired to design a new facade. The existing building was faced in brick and the facade was redesigned in the Gothic Revival style. This made Emanuel AME Church comparable to white churches in the city and superior to both African American and white rural churches of the period. The building was added to th