Macedonia Baptist Church
Abilene, Taylor County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The early community support system for citizens of color in Abilene included Mt. Zion Baptist Church, organized in 1885, and the first area school for black children, which opened in 1890 with 22 pupils. Because of African Americans' continuing desire for self-governed religious education, the Macedonia Baptist Church was organized in 1898 by the Rev. J. H. Herron of San Angelo. The charter members were Richard Hayes (the church's first deacon), his wife Winnie Hayes and Jim and Alice Slaughter. They purchased property at this site and built a small frame building by 1903. These were sometimes violent years, and the pastors who followed calls to service in Abilene did so in spite of real fear for their own well-being. The first commencement exercises for African American students in Abilene were held about 1923 in the sanctuary of Macedonia Baptist Church. The single graduate that year was a member of the church. In 1936, a longtime member, H. D. Cumby, was called as minister. Under his consistent leadership the church was expanded and remodeled frequently, with the construction of an entirely new and modern building in 1951. Dyess Air Force Base, opened in 1956, greatly contributed to the growth of the church and its membership. The Rev. H. D. Cumby retired in 1965 shortly before his death. Macedonia Baptist Church leaders, long known for their involvement in the Abilene community, were credited with deflecting much tension and violence during the racially turbulent years of the 1960s and 1970s. The church continues to be a vital part of Abilene's religious and community life. (1999)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In the Jim Crow West Texas of 1898, Abilene's Black community built its own institutions of faith and learning, and Macedonia Baptist Church became one of the sturdiest. Organized by the Rev. J. H. Herron with a handful of charter members who bought this ground and raised a frame sanctuary by 1903, the church did far more than hold Sunday services — it hosted the first commencement for the city's African American students around 1923 and steadied the community through decades that were sometimes genuinely dangerous for its pastors. Under H. D. Cumby's long ministry it grew into a modern building, and its leaders are credited with easing tensions through the turbulent 1960s and '70s.
Why it matters
It shows how, across the segregated South and West, the Black church served as school, sanctuary, and civic anchor all at once — the institution a community leaned on when public life was closed to it.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
Abilene at the turn of the twentieth century was a segregated town in a segregated region, and for its Black residents the promise of freedom won a generation earlier came hemmed in on every side by Jim Crow. Public life — schools, offices, most of the ordinary machinery of a growing city — was largely closed to them. So they built their own.
Across the South and West in these decades, that meant the Black church and the Black school stood at the very center of community life. In Abilene the pattern was already taking shape before this congregation was founded: Mt. Zion Baptist Church was organized in 1885, and the first area school for Black children opened in 1890 with twenty-two pupils. Faith and learning grew up side by side, each leaning on the other.
Out of that same hunger for self-governed religious life and education came the founding of a new congregation at the close of the century. These were not easy or safe years for such work — the marker itself remembers them as sometimes violent — and building a lasting institution took a courage that went well beyond ordinary civic ambition.
People & events
Macedonia Baptist Church was organized in 1898 by the Rev. J. H. Herron, who came from San Angelo to help a small band of believers form a congregation of their own. The charter members were few but foundational: Richard Hayes, who became the church's first deacon, his wife Winnie Hayes, and Jim and Alice Slaughter. They bought this ground and, by 1903, had raised a small frame building on it.
The pastors who answered the call to serve here did so, the record plainly says, in spite of real fear for their own safety — a reminder that leading a Black congregation in this era could be genuinely dangerous. Yet the church steadily became more than a place of Sunday worship. Around 1923 its sanctuary hosted the first commencement exercises for Abilene's African American students; there was a single graduate that year, and that graduate belonged to the church.
In 1936 a longtime member, H. D. Cumby, was called as minister, beginning a long and steady leadership under which the church was expanded and remodeled again and again, culminating in an entirely new, modern building in 1951. The opening of Dyess Air Force Base in 1956 brought new families and swelled the congregation. Cumby retired in 1965, shortly before his death, and in the racially turbulent years of the 1960s and 1970s the church's leaders were credited with helping to deflect much of the tension and violence that might otherwise have torn at the community.
Its place in the American story
The story told here is one of the central stories of Black America. Where public institutions were closed to them, African American communities across the segregated South and West made the church do the work of many institutions at once — house of worship, schoolhouse, meeting hall, and civic anchor all under one roof. A congregation like this one was where a community could govern itself, educate its children, and hold together.
The detail of the 1923 commencement captures that truth exactly. When the city offered no place to honor the achievement of Black students, the church sanctuary became the graduation hall, and the single graduate was celebrated by the very people who had built the room. Faith and education were not separate errands; they were the same act of survival and hope.
And the church's steadying role through the civil rights era shows the other half of that legacy. When public life finally began, painfully, to open up, it was these long-established institutions and their trusted leaders who could guide a community through danger toward change. The Black church did not merely endure segregation — it helped carry its people out the other side.
If you visit
This is a living church, not a relic, so approach it as you would any active house of worship — with respect, and with an awareness that the congregation praying here today is the direct heir of the four people who bought this ground in 1898. That continuity is the most moving thing about the place: more than a century of unbroken community life on a single spot.
As you take it in, hold two structures in mind at once — the small frame building finished by 1903 and the entirely new, modern building raised in 1951. The distance between those two is the distance the congregation traveled, from a handful of charter members to an established pillar of Abilene, and it is written right into the church's own history.
Make this a thoughtful stop on any tour of Abilene's community history, and let it reframe how you see the city. Around it lies the world of Abilene's early Black community — its earlier congregation and its first school for Black children — and together they tell a story of institutions built from nothing, against real fear, that are still standing and still serving today.
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
- · Rev. J. H. Herron
- · Richard Hayes
- · Winnie Hayes
- · H. D. Cumby
Themes & tags
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