Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church

William J. Laws, one of the pastors the plaque names, came to Austin after a ministry across the North. Born in Delaware in 1847 and raised in Philadelphia, he graduated from Lincoln University in 1871 and preached in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Illinois, Iowa and Minnesota before reaching Texas by the late 1890s, where he served St. James in Dallas and Metropolitan in Austin. He was a delegate to four General Conferences of the church. He led Paul Quinn College from about 1904 to 1908 and taught theology there until his death in 1925.

What the plaque says

Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church This congregation began meeting for informal worship services during the early 1870s at the home of Temple Washington. By 1873, the thirteen original members were meeting in their own sanctuary on San Antonio Street. The Rev. Frank Green served as first pastor. While plans were being drawn for a new church building, the original structure burned in 1883. Worship services were temporarily held in Smith's Opera House on W. Sixth Street. By 1884, members of Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Church were worshiping in a new building. In 1913, the church moved to a site formerly occupied by the St. John German Evangelical Congregation, and ten years later relocated to this address. The Metropolitan A.M.E. Church has been served throughout its history by many able pastors. The Rev. Abraham Grant, who came to Austin in 1881, led the congregation until 1888, when he became a bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Dr. William Laws served here during the first years of the twentieth century and was later president of Paul Quinn College. An established part of Austin's Black community for over 100 years, Metropolitan A.M.E. Church continues to uphold the ideals upon which it was founded. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836 - 1986

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• French Legation State Historic Site — steps away
  A raised pine house built in 1840 and 1841 for France's envoy to the Republic of Texas, who left Austin in a rage over a neighbor's pigs before it was finished.
• Texas State Cemetery — 0.2 mi
  A hill east of the Capitol that began with one general's grave in 1851 and now holds Stephen F. Austin, governors, Barbara Jordan and more than 2,000 Confederate veterans and widows.
• George Washington Carver Museum — 0.3 mi
  East Austin's museum of Black history and culture, grown from a segregated branch library moved across town in 1933, with a permanent exhibit on Juneteenth at its core.
• Texas State Capitol — 0.8 mi
  Austin's fourth statehouse, a Renaissance Revival capitol of 1888 that stands 311 feet to its Goddess of Liberty and was restored after the 1983 fire.

More markers nearby

• Victory Grill — steps away
• Stuart Female Seminary — steps away
• Dr. Gideon Lincecum — 0.2 mi
• Robert Crudup — 0.2 mi