The congregation has a distinguished history. It was founded by the free black itinerant minister Henry Evans from Virginia, who stopped in Fayetteville around 1780. Both whites and blacks responded to his preaching, and a church building was erected several years later. In time, a white congregation that branched off from Evans Chapel built a church in downtown Fayetteville, and in 1893 the black congregation built the present A. M. E. Zion church with the distinctive two-towered façade often favored by African American congregations. Church history cites James Williams and Joseph Steward as the artisans involved. Dallas Perry’s role is noted in the Fayetteville Observer of December 14, 1893.