Church Of The Living God, Pillar And Ground Of Truth
Richmond, Fort Bend County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The Church of the Living God, Pillar and Ground of Truth was the first of its kind and denomination in Richmond, established in 1918 by evangelist Isom Ford. The first church was built in 1923 on Fourth and Travis Streets in the Freeman Town area. Later it was added on to in 1945, then moved to the back of the property in 1969, the year a new church in Thompsons was purchased and moved to 400 Travis street. It was one of the first churches in the area with a female leader, Octavia Laws, in 1921. The church has served the community of Richmond in food and clothing ministry as well as ministry to nursing homes. It bridges generations from days of Freeman Town’s freed slaves to today.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Evangelist Isom Ford founded this congregation in 1918, the first of its denomination in Richmond, and its first church rose in 1923 in the Freeman Town neighborhood settled by freed people. Remarkably for its time, the church installed a woman, Octavia Laws, as a leader in 1921. Across the decades the building was added to, relocated more than once, and sustained ministries of food, clothing, and care for the community, bridging the generations from Freeman Town's emancipated founders to the present.
Why it matters
The church documents both the religious life of a freedmen's community and an early instance of women's leadership in the Black church, two threads of African American history rarely written down.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
Richmond sits along the Brazos River in Fort Bend County, and in the years after emancipation it became home to Freeman Town, a neighborhood settled by people who had recently been freed from slavery. Communities like this one sprang up across Texas and the wider South — clusters of families building, often from almost nothing, the institutions that free people need: homes, schools, businesses, and above all churches.
By the early twentieth century, the era historians call the Progressive and Modern age, these Black communities were maturing. A first generation born into freedom was raising children of its own, and the church stood at the center of nearly everything — spiritual life, of course, but also mutual aid, education, and the everyday work of holding a neighborhood together.
It was into this world, in 1918, that a new congregation was born. The date matters: it was the close of World War I and the year a global influenza pandemic swept the country. In an anxious, grieving time, a new house of worship was an act of hope and permanence.
People & events
The congregation was founded by an evangelist named Isom Ford, who established it as the first of its denomination in Richmond. For five years the young church gathered before it raised its own building in 1923, on Fourth and Travis Streets in the Freeman Town area — a physical rooting of a community's faith in the very neighborhood the formerly enslaved had built.
What sets this congregation apart is a decision made early and quietly: in 1921, just three years after its founding, it recognized a woman, Octavia Laws, as a leader. In an era when most American pulpits of every color were closed to women, this was a notable step, and it made her one of the first female leaders of a church in the area.
The building's later life reads like a family that keeps making room. It was added onto in 1945, then in 1969 moved to the back of its property — the same year the congregation purchased a church in nearby Thompsons and relocated it to 400 Travis Street. Through all of it, the church poured itself outward: ministries of food and clothing for those in need, and visits to nursing homes, carrying its care to people who could no longer come to it.
Its place in the American story
The Black church is one of the foundational institutions of American life, and its story is often the best-documented thread of a freedmen's community's history. This congregation embodies that role — born in a neighborhood of the recently freed, and serving as a bridge, in the marker's own framing, from the days of Freeman Town's emancipated founders to the present.
Its early embrace of a woman in leadership connects it to a larger and frequently overlooked national story. Long before mainstream denominations debated the question, Black churches were often places where women exercised real spiritual authority, even when the formal titles lagged behind the reality. Octavia Laws's recognition in 1921 is a small, concrete instance of a movement that ran for generations across the country.
And the church's practical ministries — feeding, clothing, visiting the elderly — reflect a truth about American faith communities everywhere: they have long served as an unofficial social safety net, doing quietly and locally the work of care that larger institutions often did not reach.
If you visit
Come to this corner of Richmond with the neighborhood in mind, not just the building. You are in the ground of old Freeman Town, and the story here is one of continuity — a congregation that has moved, grown, and rebuilt while staying rooted in the community it was born to serve.
A church like this lives on Sundays and in its ministries more than in its architecture, so the respectful way to encounter it is as an active house of worship. Take in the streetscape, imagine the 1923 original on Fourth and Travis and the later home on Travis Street, and consider how much of a community's life has passed through these doors across more than a century.
If you are exploring Fort Bend County's African American heritage, pair this stop with the county's other Freedom- and freedmen-era sites to feel the fuller picture: the schools, cemeteries, and congregations that together tell how a free community built itself. Read the marker, then look around at the living neighborhood, and you'll understand what it means for a church to bridge the generations.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Isom Ford
- · Octavia Laws
Themes & tags
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