Church Of The Living God, Pillar And Ground Of Truth

A woman leading this church by 1921 had a precedent at the top: the denomination itself was founded by one. Mary Magdalena Lewis Tate, a Tennessee preacher, gathered her followers in 1903 into the Church of the Living God, the Pillar and Ground of the Truth, a name drawn from 1 Timothy 3:15. At a 1908 general assembly in Greenville, Alabama, she ordained ministers and incorporated the body, and she became one of the first American women to hold the title of bishop. By 1916 it held charters in more than twenty states. She died in December 1930.

What the plaque says

Church Of The Living God, Pillar And Ground Of Truth The Church of the Living God, Pillar and Ground of Truth was the first of its kind and denomination in Richmond, established in 1918 by evangelist Isom Ford. The first church was built in 1923 on Fourth and Travis Streets in the Freeman Town area. Later it was added on to in 1945, then moved to the back of the property in 1969, the year a new church in Thompsons was purchased and moved to 400 Travis street. It was one of the first churches in the area with a female leader, Octavia Laws, in 1921. The church has served the community of Richmond in food and clothing ministry as well as ministry to nursing homes. It bridges generations from days of Freeman Town's freed slaves to today. (2015)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Brazos Bend State Park — 17 mi
  Oak and pecan bottomland, lakes and alligators on the Brazos River 45 miles from downtown Houston, with the museum's George Observatory in the woods.
• The Menil Collection — 24 mi
  John and Dominique de Menil's free museum in Montrose: a grey-sided Renzo Piano building among bungalows, holding antiquities, Surrealism and art of Oceania under natural light.
• Museum of Fine Arts, Houston — 24 mi
  The oldest art museum in Texas, grown from a 1900 schoolroom art league into a campus of Watkin, Mies van der Rohe and later buildings, with Ima Hogg's Bayou Bend up the bayou.
• Rothko Chapel — 24 mi
  An octagonal chapel open to all faiths, built by the de Menils around fourteen dark canvases by Mark Rothko, with Barnett Newman's Broken Obelisk standing in the pool outside.

More markers nearby

• Wyly Martin — steps away
• Erastus ("Deaf") Smith — 0.2 mi
• Constantine W. Buckley — 0.3 mi
• Calvary Episcopal Church — 0.4 mi