Founded in 1866 largely by freedmen, Woodlawn Baptist Church and Cemetery was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1966.

[2] When singer Tina Turner was growing up as Anna Mae Bullock in Nutbush, Woodlawn Baptist was one of her family churches.

In Tennessee, he was secretly taught by his master William H. Loving's wife and children to read and write through the Bible, which was against state law at the time.

[7] In 1866, after emancipation and the end of the Civil War, Hardin Smith and Martin Winfield were among three men in Haywood County selected by missionaries of the Baptist Home Mission Board for the first classes in ministry at the newly established Roger Williams College in Nashville.

Before 1900, more students attended Roger Williams College from the Woodlawn Missionary Baptist Church than from any other community in Tennessee.

[4] Graduates from Roger Williams helped lead other black schools and colleges; they became ministers, doctors, lawyers, and teachers.

[2] Woodlawn Baptist Church is located 3 mi (4.8 km) southeast of Nutbush, south of Tennessee State Route 19.