Established in Gloucester County in 1867 by a small group of congregants from Zion Poplars Baptist Church, Union Zion Baptist Church is one of the earliest churches founded and built by emancipated African Americans in the county in the years following the end of the Civil War. The current frame church was built in 1894 in an eclectic Folk Victorian style. Union Zion Baptist Church and its associated Pole Bridge Cemetery were part of a larger movement in the South during the mid- to late-19th century in which congregations within Black communities grew independently from that of White churches and created their own spaces for worship and gatherings. The historic Union Zion Cemetery, now known as the Pole Bridge Cemetery, is located 1.4 miles to the east of the church, and was the site of the first and the second Union Zion Baptist church buildings.