Mount Zion United Methodist Church

Mount Zion's founders belonged to a larger move among Black Methodists. The Handbook of Texas says that after the Civil War the northern Methodist Episcopal Church, which organized a Texas district in 1865, drew many Black and German Methodists, and the Southern church lost Black members to the African Methodist Episcopal Church by 1870. By 1876 Black and White members of the northern church had formed separate conferences. Wiley College opened at Marshall in 1873 for Black Methodists. The plaque places Mount Zion in the northern church's Mississippi Mission Annual Conference.

What the plaque says

Mount Zion United Methodist Church In the years following Emancipation, eighteen former slaves worshipped together on the banks of the Brazos River under an old oak tree. Records show that these men and women, both Baptists and Methodists, were also allowed to worship in the balcony of Waco's First Baptist Church sanctuary. In May 1866, they requested letters of dismissal from Dr. Rufus Burleson, then president of Baylor University. Following their dismissals, these men and women chartered new churches. The Baptists and Methodists shared rented space at Jefferson and Sixth streets until the Freedman's Aid Society selected the location for Howard Institute, a school for local African Americans. The Baptist and Methodist congregations dismantled their building and shared the lumber. The Methodist church, known as Mount Zion, moved to North Sixth and Marlbrough, where it dedicated the first sanctuary in April 1873. Shortly after the church's founding in the 1860s, Mount Zion became part of a large group of Black Methodist churches under the Mississippi Mission Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church. The congregation grew, and out of the growth three other Methodist Episcopal congregations were organized. In 1972, due to urban renewal, members worshipped in the Friendship Center until relocating the church to this site in October 1973. Over the years, Mount Zion's members have maintained a strong link to Texas' Methodist educational institutions. Today, Mount Zion's members are active in local educational training, as well as many other programs and services. The church continues to be a spiritual home for many in the Waco area. (2006)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Waco Suspension Bridge — 0.9 mi
  A Brazos crossing opened in January 1870 as the longest single-span suspension bridge west of the Mississippi, tolled until 1889, closed to vehicles in 1971 and now walked.
• Dr Pepper Museum — 1.0 mi
  The 1906 bottling plant of the Artesian Manufacturing and Bottling Company, built where Dr Pepper outgrew a Waco drugstore soda fountain, now the Dr Pepper Museum.
• Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum — 1.5 mi
  The official state repository of Texas Ranger memorabilia, opened in 1968 in Fort Fisher Park on the Brazos, named for a Ranger post of 1837 whose site no one has located.
• Armstrong Browning Library — 1.9 mi
  A three-story Italian Renaissance library on the Baylor campus built to hold A. J. Armstrong's Browning collection, dedicated in December 1951 and now, by its own account, the world's largest of Browning material.

More markers nearby

• Waco City Waterworks — 0.2 mi
• Site of Waco Indian Village — 0.5 mi
• Grand Lodge of Texas, A.F. & A.M. — 0.6 mi
• Sheppard "Shep" Mullens — 0.7 mi