New Hope Baptist Church
Waco, McLennan County, Texas
Marker Inscription
In the years before 1865, some blacks in Waco worshiped at the city's first baptist church. In 1866 the congregation's pastor, Baylor University President Dr. Rufus Burleson with the Rev.S.G. O'Bryan and Dr. Richard Burleson, organized a black church with 18 members. It was named the New Hope Baptist Church by its first pastor, the Rev. Stephen Cobb. During its early years the congregation held services in an old foundry, at the Howard Institute, and in a building shared with a local Methodist Church. One of the oldest black Baptist churches in Waco, the congregation has met at this site since 1923.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In the years before emancipation, some of Waco's Black residents worshiped at the city's first Baptist church. In 1866 that church's leaders — including Baylor University president Rufus Burleson — helped organize a separate congregation of eighteen members, named New Hope Baptist Church by its first pastor, the Rev. Stephen Cobb. In its early years the young congregation met in an old foundry, at the Howard Institute, and in a shared Methodist building before settling at its present site in 1923.
Why it matters
As one of the oldest Black Baptist churches in Waco, New Hope embodies the surge of independent African American religious life that followed emancipation across the South.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
When the Civil War ended in 1865, Waco was a young but ambitious town on the Brazos River in the heart of Central Texas. Cotton drove its economy, and much of that cotton had been planted and picked by enslaved people. News of emancipation reached Texas late. The famous announcement at Galveston in June 1865, now remembered as Juneteenth, came months after the fighting had stopped in the East.
Before freedom, Black Texans had few choices about where or how they worshiped. Many sat in the galleries or back pews of white-run churches, under white preachers and white church discipline. In Waco, the marker records, some Black residents worshiped at the city's first Baptist church.
Emancipation changed that almost overnight. Across the South, freedpeople moved quickly to build institutions they controlled themselves, and the church came first. A congregation was more than a place to pray. It was a school, a meeting hall, a mutual-aid society and a training ground for leaders. New Hope Baptist Church grew out of that remarkable moment.
People & events
In 1866, only a year after emancipation, a new Black congregation of eighteen members was organized in Waco. The marker credits its founding to three men from the white Baptist church: Dr. Rufus Burleson, whom the marker identifies as Baylor University's president and who was one of the best-known Baptist educators in Texas, along with the Rev. S. G. O'Bryan and Dr. Richard Burleson. Their part reflects a pattern seen across the South at the time, when white churches sometimes helped organize separate congregations as Black members left to worship on their own terms.
The church's identity, though, came from its own first pastor, the Rev. Stephen Cobb. He gave it the name New Hope, a name that is hard to read today without thinking of the year it was chosen. For people newly freed from slavery, hope was no figure of speech.
The early years were improvised. With no building of its own, the congregation met wherever it could: in an old foundry, at the Howard Institute, and in a building it shared with a local Methodist church. That kind of borrowing and sharing was common among young Black congregations in the postwar South, and it shows how determined the members were. They kept the church together long before they had walls to call their own.
In 1923 the congregation settled at the site where the marker now stands. The eighteen founders had become a lasting institution and one of the oldest Black Baptist churches in Waco.
Its place in the American story
New Hope belongs to one of the great stories of Reconstruction: the founding of independent Black churches across the former Confederacy. In the years after 1865, freedpeople left white-controlled congregations by the hundreds of thousands. The churches they built became the backbone of Black community life for generations.
Those churches did far more than hold Sunday services. They sheltered schools when public education for Black children was scarce or absent, and they raised money for the sick and the bereaved. They gave Black men and women a place to lead, organize and speak their minds. Much of the leadership of later struggles for civil rights grew out of congregations like this one.
New Hope's story also shows how complicated that period was. A congregation organized with the help of white Baptist leaders still took its name and its direction from its own pastor and members. Its long stretch of meeting in borrowed spaces is a reminder that independence was won slowly, one gathering at a time.
If you visit
New Hope Baptist Church is a living congregation, not a museum, so be respectful of services and church activities. The marker is the best place to start. Picture eighteen people in 1866 deciding to build something entirely their own.
As you stand at the site, think about the long road the congregation took to get there: from an old foundry, to a school, to a shared sanctuary, and finally, in 1923, to this ground. The building in front of you is the end of nearly six decades of searching for a permanent home.
Waco is an easy stop on a Central Texas road trip along the I-35 corridor. Pair this marker with a walk along the Brazos River, which shaped the city's early growth, and with other sites tied to Waco's African American history. Together they tell a fuller story of the city than any single stop can.
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
- · Rufus Burleson
- · Stephen Cobb
- · S. G. O'Bryan
- · Richard Burleson
Themes & tags
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