Greater St. Luke Missionary Baptist Church.

In 1923 Lubbock passed an ordinance confining Black residents to the east side. Black people could not own property or live elsewhere in the city unless they were servants, and each day in violation drew a fine. The city then put an industrial zone around the neighborhood. The ordinance was not repealed until 2006. Within those lines grew The Flats, a close community of educators and leaders, and the Caviel Museum of African American History, opened in 2015 in the Caviels' former pharmacy on Avenue A, tells its story.

What the plaque says

Greater St. Luke Missionary Baptist Church. The African American community was a small but growing segment in the early days of the town of Lubbock. Only five black citizens were counted in the 1910 census, growing to 152 by 1920. Most had come from small towns in Central and East Texas and settled in a neighborhood called "The Flats," Northwest of 19th street and Avenue A. It became Lubbock's first African American neighborhood and included homes, businesses and churches. Often, African American churches served not only spiritual needs but as social and educational centers. In 1921, Caldonia Baptist church (later Greater St. Luke's Missionary Baptist Church) was organized by Rev. Wiley, followed by Rev. J.J. Davis in 1922. The congregation first met in the neighborhood's masonic lodge at 16th street and avenue A. In 1924, worshippers bought land at 1820 Avenue A, erecting first a wooden shelter and then a frame sanctuary at the site. In 1950, new property on 26th street was purchased, with the frame sanctuary moved to the new site. Denied assistance from dozens of insurance companies and banks, members made larger brick facilities a reality through hard work and patience. Men worked at the site evenings after their regular jobs over a 16-month period to build a new church and education center. In a newspaper advertisement, the congregation invited the community to a December 8, 1957, dedication "to see what the Lord has done through people who had faith in God and no money in the bank." The church has been active beyond worship as a polling place, boy scout troop sponsor, and activities including marching drill teams, music and a radio ministry. Greater St. Luke missionary Baptist church remains an active and vibrant congregation entering its second century of service. (2020)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Buddy Holly Center — 0.7 mi
  The city's museum of Buddy Holly and West Texas music in a 1928 railway depot, with the house where the Crickets worked on That'll Be the Day moved next door.
• American Windmill Museum — 0.9 mi
  Lubbock's park of restored water-pumping windmills and early wind chargers, more than 70 of them turning outdoors and the rare ones under roof, with a megawatt-era turbine overhead.
• National Ranching Heritage Center — 3.2 mi
  A Texas Tech outdoor museum where ranch houses, barns, windmills and a depot from across the ranching country were moved one by one onto a single park beside the campus.
• Lubbock Lake Landmark — 4.8 mi
  A bend of Yellow House Draw on Lubbock's north edge where digging has found nearly 12,000 years of people on the Southern High Plains, layer on layer, from Clovis to the 1880s.

More markers nearby

• Mount Gilead Baptist Church — steps away
• New Hope Baptist Church — 0.4 mi
• Mary & Mac Private School — 0.4 mi
• Lubbock's First Cotton Gin — 0.6 mi