St. John Missionary Baptist Church

The plaque names the builder; his own story ran longer. James M. Thomas was born in Pelham in Navarro County and said he learned his trade from the Hill County church his grandfather helped build. At Prairie View he worked with the architect Louis E. Fry on campus buildings. From 1937 he designed and then built more than 55 Houston churches, most with twin corner towers and wide steps. He taught mechanical drawing at Phillis Wheatley High for 42 years, retiring in 1972, and died in 1994. Early on, he recalled, Black congregations would not pay for plans.

What the plaque says

St. John Missionary Baptist Church ST. JOHN MISSIONARY BAPTIST CHURCH, ORGANIZED IN 1899 BY REVERENDS GILBERT GREEN AND HILLIARD R. JOHNSON, FIRST MET IN A SMALL BUILDING NEAR CALHOUN AVENUE AND LIVE OAK STREET. IN 1901, REV. JAMES B. BOULDIN PURCHASED PROPERTY, LATER CONVEYED TO CHURCH TRUSTEES, IN THE 2100 BLOCK OF BROADWAY (NOW BASTROP STREET). A SMALL FRAME BUILDING WAS LATER ERECTED THERE, BUT AFTER A STORM DEMOLISHED IT, A TENT WAS USED TEMPORARILY FOR WORSHIP SERVICES. BETWEEN 1907 AND 1915, A NEW SANCTUARY WAS BUILT WITH A BAPTISMAL POOL, AUDITORIUM, PARTIAL BALCONY, ELEVATED CHOIR STAND, ADDITIONAL ROOMS, AND A BELL IN THE LEFT TOWER THAT CONTINUES TO BE USED TODAY IN THE RIGHT TOWER. IN 1917, THE CHURCH SPLIT DUE TO VARIOUS MISUNDERSTANDINGS, CREATING ANOTHER ST. JOHN BAPTIST CHURCH ON DOWLING STREET. AS MEMBERSHIP INCREASED WITH MORE PEOPLE MOVING TO THE CITY AFTER WORLD WAR II, A LARGER BUILDING WAS NEEDED. IN 1946, JAMES M. THOMAS, A LOCAL BLACK CONTRACTOR WHO BECAME HOUSTON'S MOST PROMINENT ARCHITECT FOR BLACK CONGREGATIONS, BUILT THE THREE-STORY GOTHIC REVIVAL MASONRY STRUCTURE WITH THE NAVE AND TWIN TOWERS EXEMPLIFYING 1930s TO 1950s LOCAL AFRICAN-AMERICAN CHURCH ARCHITECTURE. ALTHOUGH ST. JOHN HAD MANY STRUGGLES AND GREW SLOWLY, IT BECAME ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT CHURCHES IN THE EARLY 1900s, NOTED FOR ITS ATTITUDE TOWARDS CIVIC AND BENEVOLENT MOVEMENTS. IT HAS PROGRESSED FROM A TRADITIONAL SERVICE TO A SPIRIT FILLED, PRAISE AND WORSHIP EXPERIENCE AND CONTINUES AS AN INFLUENTIAL AFRICAN-AMERICAN INSTITUTION. (2011)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Emancipation Park — 0.5 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 — 1.1 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.
• Sam Houston Park and the Heritage Society — 1.4 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.
• Museum of Fine Arts, Houston — 2.1 mi
  The oldest art museum in Texas, grown from a 1900 schoolroom art league into a campus of Watkin, Mies van der Rohe and later buildings, with Ima Hogg's Bayou Bend up the bayou.

More markers nearby

• Dr. Benjamin Jesse Covington and the Covington House — steps away
• Grand Court Order of Calanthe of Texas — 0.2 mi
• Fourth Missionary Baptist Church — 0.3 mi
• The Legacy of Emancipation Park — 0.5 mi