Payne Chapel A.M.E. Church

The plaque names the church for Bishop Daniel Alexander Payne, whose own road began in a closed schoolroom. Born free in Charleston in 1811 and orphaned young, he opened a school in 1829 for about sixty pupils, mostly free Black children, with some enslaved students taught in secret. An 1834 South Carolina law banning such schools shut it, and he went north to the Lutheran seminary at Gettysburg. He joined the A.M.E. ministry in 1842, became its first formally trained bishop in 1852, and from 1863 led Wilberforce University, the first college controlled by African Americans.

What the plaque says

Payne Chapel A.M.E. Church Payne Chapel A.M.E. is a historic congregation and an anchor in Houston's fifth ward. The church probably began in 1886 with a small group of people meeting in the home of Minerva Wells. It was the first African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) church in the fifth ward, although several existed in Houston's other wards. Member james Calvin Lindsey named the church for Daniel Alexander Payne (1811-1893), the sixth bishop of the A.M.E. church. A circuit pastor possibly served the church in its earliest days. The first known pastor was Henry B. Sonly (b. 1866), appointed in 1896. The Reverend James B. Butler (b. 1874) led the church as they built their first building at 1517 Hill Street. When the church grew, a new building was needed. In 1919, under the direction of the Rev. Jesse C. Butler (b. 1879), the church purchased an existing wood frame church building at 2701 Lee and a parsonage at 2709 Lee. Several remodels took place over the following decades. in 1950, the most extensive renovations began. Renowned architect Ralph M. Buffington (1907-2003) designed a 700-seat sanctuary and educational spaces. Additional expansions occurred in the 1960s and 1970s. Some of Houston's most prominent city leaders, business persons and educators were members of the church, including Julia C. Hester and Henry Clay. In 1986, the church held an extensive centennial celebration and hosted several church and civic leaders. The next few decades saw Payne Chapel A.M.E. dedicate itself to local community and education services. (2022)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sam Houston Park and the Heritage Society — 2.3 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.
• Emancipation Park — 3.4 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.
• Buffalo Soldiers National Museum — 3.8 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.
• Rothko Chapel — 4.4 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

• The Frenchtown Community — 0.3 mi
• Mount Vernon United Methodist Church — 0.5 mi
• Zydeco Music in Frenchtown — 0.9 mi
• Peacock Records — 0.9 mi