Founded by Dr. Henry Martin Tupper in 1866 as the Second Baptist Church and reportedly boasting the largest Sunday School in North Carolina then, with some 1,000 students. Between 1912 and 1913, the congregation renamed itself the Blount St. Baptist Church and constructed a new wood-frame building on the site of the original church. In the 1940s, the church was renamed again to honor Dr. Tupper, and it was veneered with brick in 1957. Dr. Tupper also founded nearby Shaw University.
