Calvary Baptist Church, one of Utah’s largest and oldest African-American congregations, celebrated the Rev. France Davis’ 44th anniversary of ministry Sunday.
The special 3:30 p.m. service of preaching, singing and prayer at the church, 1090 S. State St. in Salt Lake City, was presided over by the Rev. Michael Ross, pastor of Boise’s St. Paul Baptist Church.
Davis, a veteran of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s civil rights campaigns of the 1960s and a participant in the historic Selma-to-Montgomery, Ala., voting rights march, came to Utah in the early 1970s and became Calvary’s pastor in 1974.
Under his leadership, the church has garnered a reputation for community and civil service as its congregation has grown to more than 700 members.
