View Edit

2025 CC SA-BY Our Oakland

Memorial Tabernacle Church is at 5801 Racine at 58th St. and Telegraph. It was originally known as Christ Holy Sanctified Church, and started in West Oakland in the 1920s.

The Christ Holy Sanctified Church was first established in Keatchie, Louisiana in 1910 by Bishop Judge and Sarah King. Sometime after 1920, Bishop Judge King and his family moved to Los Angeles, California, in search of a better life for his family because of racial prejudice in the South. They traveled from city to city preaching, ranging as far as Weed and Oroville, and Bishop King became more well known as his message spread rapidly throughout California. Bishop King settled with his family in San Francisco for a time. However, by 1925 he heeded the call of God to establish a mission church across the bay in West Oakland.

7th Street

The first Christ Holy Sanctified Church in Oakland was located in a two-story house on Seventh Street, which was culturally rich, diverse, and had a colorful social nightlife. During the post-war years, nearly a half-mile area along Seventh Street was known as "hell's half acre," so-called because of seedy nightclubs, prostitution, derelicts, street alcoholics, and sometimes open street violence. People from all over the Bay Area—black and white—and visitors from other parts of the country and even from across the world would frequent Seventh Street’s many popular nightclubs and bars. Many great jazz musicians and blues singers are said to have made their beginning on Seventh Street in West Oakland. The Seventh Street Mission, as it was known, was located at 1731 - 7th Street in the center of this cultural mecca.

Bishop Judge and Sarah King preached on street corners, in front of bars, and invited people of all walks of life into their homes. Pimps, prostitutes, and drunken sailors all heard and believed the gospel of Jesus Christ. Miracles, signs, and wonders followed their ministry, and the church grew rapidly into one of the great centers of evangelism in the classical Pentecostal tradition in the Bay Area. Popular revivalists and evangelists throughout the country came to conduct revival services at the church. In 1931, the congregation purchased land and moved to a larger building at 1711 - 7th Street.

Bishop Judge King died in 1945, leaving the church in the hands of his son and able assistant, Bishop Ulysses S. King, Sr. The new Bishop King was a progressive thinker, spiritual leader, church administrator, organizer, and an anointed preacher and musician. He saw the church in a much larger context within the Christian community and had great zeal and vision for the church. He believed the doctrine of holiness and sanctification could be taught in other communities of faiths without fear or prejudice. So, he became a member of the Center for Urban Black Studies in Berkeley, California, and later received an Honorary Doctor of Divinity degree from the same institution. He was also a member of the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance, and other community organizations. His vision was to see the local church become a center of influence within the heart of the community.

1951 Sanborn excerpt

Racine Street

In 1960, the U.S. Postal Service purchased several blocks of land and property on Seventh Street to build their new Main Post Office, thus the church had to find a new home. Bishop Ulysses King, Sr., Mother M.K. Williams, and Deacon Tommy Thomas prayed about a new building, and the Holy Spirit directed them to North Oakland. There they found and purchased a property from St. Mark's Evangelical & Reformed Church, our present church home.

For over sixty years in the ministry, Bishop Ulysses King, Sr., preached and served the church, and the people of God, everywhere. In 1985, Bishop Ulysses S. King, Sr. was called home to be with the Lord. His vision for the church continues and lives on under the leadership of his youngest son, Ulysses Stephen King, Jr. (better known as Pastor Stephen King). Memorial Tabernacle Church was established as the new name of the church in 1985, to honor the faithful guidance of past generations. Under new leadership the church has emerged as an influential center of Christian outreach in our city, denomination, and Christian community at large. We give praise to God for where we have come and look forward to where He will lead us still.

Memorial Tabernacle celebrated its 100th anniversary in September 2025 as it continues to work towards impacting the Oakland community and its environs.

Links and References

Edit tags