First Missionary Baptist Church of Angleton
Angleton, Brazoria County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Angleton's First Missionary Baptist Church organized in 1898, when it primarily served African American field hands and tenant farmers from the surrounding agricultural area. In 1905, under the direction of the Rev. Hamp Evans, congregants built their first sanctuary. The church held services once a month, eventually adding other Sunday services as the membership grew. Throughout its history, the church has been a social and cultural focal point of its community. It also played a role in civil rights efforts in the 1960s and 1970s, as citizens gathered to discuss strategies for integrating the local chemical industry. (2005)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Organized in 1898, First Missionary Baptist Church of Angleton first served the African American field hands and tenant farmers of the surrounding Brazoria County farmland. Under the Rev. Hamp Evans, members built their first sanctuary in 1905, expanding services as the congregation grew. In the 1960s and 1970s the church became a meeting ground where citizens strategized to integrate the area's chemical industry.
Why it matters
The church shows how Black congregations doubled as engines of the civil rights movement, turning places of worship into staging grounds for the fight over jobs and equality.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Rev. Hamp Evans
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Angleton Independent School District
Angleton, TX
In 1892 two residents donated a town block for schools, and citizens raised two hundred dollars for a frame building that doubled as Angleton's meeting house. The district incorporated in 1897, and its brick schools were twice destroyed by the great coastal storms of 1900 and 1909, each time rebuilt larger. Angleton touted its schools to attract settlers and repeatedly enlarged the district; separate schools for African American and Hispanic students operated until integration was achieved in the 1960s.
Columbia Rosenwald School
West Columbia, TX
This is one of the few surviving Rosenwald schools in Texas, built through the partnership of Sears president Julius Rosenwald and educator Booker T. Washington to fund schools for African American children across the South. Opened in East Columbia in 1921 with grants matched by local and Black community contributions, it replaced a school that had shared space with a church. Under its first teacher, Mrs. P.A. Franklin, it taught grades one through seven until closing in 1949.
Lorraine Crosby School
Hitchcock, TX
The education of Hitchcock's African American children began in 1903 in a private home and a Baptist church annex, and a permanent school opened in 1914 after residents raised money through fish fries and other fundraisers to buy the lot. Long known as the Hitchcock Colored School, it was renamed in 1949 for beloved teacher and principal Lorraine Crosby. Despite scarce funding, staff and families built up sports teams and a scout troop; the school graduated classes from 1960 until integration in the mid-1960s.
Rosewood Cemetery
Galveston, TX
In 1911 a group of African American Galvestonians formed the Rosewood Cemetery Association and bought land near the beach, because Black citizens were barred from most of the city's cemeteries. Churches, lodges, and individuals bought shares, and burials continued into the 1940s. Later seawall construction and development gradually erased the site until, in 2006, a surviving acre was donated to the Galveston Historical Foundation for preservation.