Originally organized in 1818 on Beacon Hill and named May Street and then Revere Street, the congregation took the name Fourth Methodist upon moving to Roxbury in 1910. The congregation purchased and moved to this building at 485 Columbus Avenue in 1949 with the condition that it keep the original name of the former owner, Union Congregational. Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune, the American educator, author and civil rights leader who founded the National Council for Negro Women in 1935 and served as a national adviser to president Franklin D. Roosevelt, was the aunt of the pastor of the church in 1910 and the keynote speaker for the formal opening.
The church was the site of many important events including the national NAACP convention in 1950 that voted to pursue Brown v. Board of Education and the Boston debut of the Duke Ellington Sacred Jazz Orchestra in 1966. In the 1970s, Union led the development of Meth-Union Manor, the four-building affordable housing cooperative nearby. In partnership with St. Cyprian's Episcopal Church, it also established the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Breakfast.
