Good Hope Missionary Baptist Church

Two people on the plaque fought one fight. The Rev. Albert A. Lucas, pastor here from about 1935 until his death in 1963, was elected president of the Houston NAACP in November 1939 and urged his congregation from the pulpit to join and pay poll taxes. In May 1940 he brought Black Texans to the state NAACP meeting in Corpus Christi, where they and Thurgood Marshall drew up a plan to end the White primary. That July a member, the dentist Lonnie E. Smith, was refused a primary ballot. His suit won 8 to 1 on April 3, 1944.

What the plaque says

Good Hope Missionary Baptist Church Good Hope Missionary Baptist Church was established by the Rev. Samuel Grantham. The pastor first held services in his own backyard before members built a structure out of wooden boxes. Because of its appearance, this first building was called a baking box church. In 1872, members formally established the church and erected a more permanent sanctuary in Houston's Fourth Ward. The church became an important place of worship for African Americans in Houston, and early members included former slaves. Since that time, the church has developed into one of Houston's leading community and spiritual institutions. Several noteworthy Texans have been members of this church. The Rev. Albert Anderson Lucas is one of several prominent pastors in the church's history. He simultaneously pastored here and served as president of the local chapter of the NAACP. Dr. Lonnie Smith, another member, was the plaintiff in the significant U.S. Supreme Court case of Smith v. Allright, which led to minority voting rights in primary elections. Barbara Jordan, the first African American U.S. Congresswoman from the South, was also a member of the church. Good Hope Missionary Baptist Church has continued in its service to the community through a variety of outreach programs. Over the years, the church has become an essential part of Houston's progress. The contributions of its leaders and members have had a positive impact on African Americans in the city of Houston and on men and women throughout the nation. (2006)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Museum of Fine Arts, Houston — 1.4 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.
• Buffalo Soldiers National Museum — 1.5 mi
  A museum in Houston's 1925 Light Guard Armory that tells the service of Black soldiers from the Revolutionary War onward, built from one veteran's thirty years of collecting.
• Emancipation Park — 1.5 mi
  The Third Ward park that freedpeople bought for Juneteenth in 1872, rebuilt in 2017 on Emancipation Avenue and still the center of the city's June 19 celebration.
• Rothko Chapel — 2.2 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

• Pilgrim Congregational United Church of Christ — 0.6 mi
• Houston Negro Chamber of Commerce — 0.8 mi
• Dr. Thomas F. Freeman — 0.8 mi
• John Thomas Biggers — 0.9 mi