ATLANTA — Members of two historic Atlanta churches in the path of a proposed new NFL stadium are considering their options.
Mt. Vernon Baptist Church is in the middle of the favored site for the Atlanta Falcons' new home, just south of the Georgia Dome.
Friendship Baptist Church is just across Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, which would have to be rerouted through the church's property to make way for the new stadium.
The churches have storied histories in the city.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that the late Mayor Maynard Jackson's father once preached at Friendship Baptist, a congregation whose history dates to the early days of the American Civil War. Morehouse College housed classes in the congregation in 1879 and Spelman began in the church's basement two years later.