Greater Ward A.M.E. Church

The bishop this church honors made his name on the Pacific Coast. Thomas M. D. Ward, born in Pennsylvania in 1823 and raised in Philadelphia, went west as an A.M.E. missionary and took over St. Cyprian's church in San Francisco in 1854, the year an arsonist attacked it. He served in Sacramento, hosted the 1857 convention of California's Black citizens, raised money for the freedom suits of Archy Lee, an enslaved man brought to California, and led a contraband relief association in the Civil War. Elected bishop in 1868, he died in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1894.

What the plaque says

Greater Ward A.M.E. Church Greater Ward African Methodist Episcopal Church (Ward Chapel A.M.E. Church until 1972; then Greater Ward Chapel A.M.E. Church, 1972-2007) is the oldest congregation of its kind in the Acres Homes Community, located ten miles north of downtown Houston. Ward Chapel A.M.E. Church was organized in February 1913 and named in honor of Bishop Thomas M. D. Ward, the tenth bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. The first place of worship was in the home of Rev. John T. Williams and his wife, Cassie, on what is now Tuskegee Street at Holly Street. In 1919, the Wright Land Company donated two lots on Apollo Street near Galilee Missionary Baptist Church, but the congregation opted to build on the west side of Arabella at Granville Street. After a 1934 fire, a new structure was erected there in 1935. The sanctuary on the east side of Arabella was erected in 1955, following a major building campaign. Rev. Ollie Lewis Dawson, one of the congregation's longest-serving ministers, was a community activist and used the church as a meeting place to discuss social and civic matters. He was active with the NAACP, Acres Homes Church Union, A.M.E. Ministers Alliance and many other organizations. The church had numerous ministries, including several choirs, the Daughters of Ward, the Allen Christian League and vacation bible school. Ferguson Way was named for trustee Rendy Ann Johnson Ferguson. Trustee Wiley Adams successfully petitioned county officials to name nearby Tuskegee, Wilberforce, Paul Quinn and Dillard Streets in honor of historically black colleges and universities. The church continues to be a source of guidance and support for the Acres Homes Community. (2015)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sam Houston Park and the Heritage Society — 7.8 mi
  Ten historic buildings gathered in a downtown park below the skyscrapers, among them the 1870 house of the Reverend Jack Yates, built five years after emancipation.
• The Menil Collection — 8.8 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.
• Rothko Chapel — 8.8 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.
• Buffalo Soldiers National Museum — 9.2 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.

More markers nearby

• Acres Homes Community — steps away
• Galilee Missionary Baptist Church — 0.3 mi
• Jackson's Barber Shop & Beauty Salon — 3.7 mi
• James D. Burrus Elementary School — 3.8 mi