Rev. John Sella Martin, who served as pastor of the Joy Street Baptist Church ( African Meeting House) around 1859, often served as guest preacher at the Tremont Temple, a mostly white congregation. He addressed worshippers at the Temple on January 1, 1863, when news of President's Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation reached Boston. In 1861, he had met with Lincoln to oppose the sending of ex-slaves back to Africa.