New Hope Missionary Baptist Church
Gladewater, Gregg County, Texas
Marker Inscription
After emancipation, the organization of churches by former slaves formed not only a house for worship but also a center for the economic, political and social aspects of the community. In 1893, some of the members of Saint James Missionary Baptist church in the Red Rock Community (near Gladewater) moved downtown seeking employment opportunities. Soon, reverend Louis Holoway and seven others founded a church congregation under a brush arbor. The founding members were Peter Lee, Matt Perry, Elnora Turner, Della Perry, Celia Johnson, Lou Johnson and Mollie Daniels. Around 1896, the first church building, a small one-room building, was erected near the fork of the old Tyler highway (South Main St.). In 1911, the first church building was torn down and the congregation relocated to its present location on Roden Lane. In addition to religious priorities, education of African American children was also important to the church. The first African American school in Gladewater was held in the New Hope Missionary Baptist Church building. Over the years, the congregation and the church expanded with renovations in 1934, 1950 and 1968. In an effort to broaden their reach, additional Sunday worship services were added as well as radio broadcasts. Through community outreach, assistance, foreign and local ministries, and disaster relief, the New Hope Missionary Baptist Church has been a beacon of hope to the community for more than a century. These east Texas pioneers made it possible for the African American community to worship and gather.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In 1893, members of a nearby congregation moved into downtown Gladewater seeking work and founded New Hope under a brush arbor, led by Reverend Louis Holoway and seven others. Like countless Black churches born after emancipation, it became far more than a house of worship—the first school for African American children in Gladewater met within its walls. Rebuilt and expanded across the 20th century, it has anchored its community for well over a century.
Why it matters
After slavery, the Black church was the one institution formerly enslaved people fully owned, doubling as school, meeting hall, and refuge—the foundation of African American community life.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
Emancipation changed everything and settled nothing. Freed from slavery, African Americans across the South faced the enormous work of building lives, livelihoods, and institutions of their own — often with little but their labor and one another. In that work, the church came first, because it could be more than a church.
For communities barred from so much of public life, a congregation founded by former slaves became the center of everything: a house of worship, yes, but also the meeting hall, the school, and the place where economic, political, and social life could be organized on the community's own terms. It was the one institution its people fully owned.
In the Reconstruction-era pineywoods of East Texas, near Gladewater, that pattern played out congregation by congregation. New Hope Missionary Baptist Church is one of those stories — begun not with a building, but with a brush arbor and a determination to gather.
People & events
In 1893, some members of the Saint James Missionary Baptist Church in the Red Rock Community near Gladewater moved downtown in search of employment. Rather than leave their faith behind, they planted it anew: Reverend Louis Holoway and seven others founded a congregation, worshiping under a brush arbor — an open-air shelter of posts and cut branches, the humble first sanctuary of countless frontier churches.
Those founders are remembered by name — Peter Lee, Matt Perry, Elnora Turner, Della Perry, Celia Johnson, Lou Johnson, and Mollie Daniels — a roll call of the ordinary people who start extraordinary institutions. Around 1896 they raised their first real building, a small one-room structure near the fork of the old Tyler highway, now South Main Street.
In 1911 that first building came down and the congregation relocated to its present home on Roden Lane. From there the church kept growing and adapting, with renovations in 1934, 1950, and 1968, and it broadened its reach over the years by adding Sunday worship services and even radio broadcasts to carry its message beyond the walls.
Its place in the American story
New Hope embodies a truth that runs through all of African American history after slavery: the Black church was the foundation on which free communities were built. It doubled as school, meeting place, and refuge, and it belonged wholly to its people at a time when very little else did.
That double role is written into this congregation's own history. The first school for African American children in Gladewater met inside the New Hope building — worship and education under one roof, because for a community shut out of other institutions, the church had to be both.
Multiply this one congregation by the thousands like it across the South, and you have the story of how a people emerging from bondage created the schools, the leaders, and the civic life that sustained them for generations. Through outreach, assistance, ministries, and disaster relief, New Hope has been, in the marker's own spirit, a beacon of hope for well over a century.
If you visit
Visit New Hope on Roden Lane thinking about layers of time. The congregation you find today stands several homes removed from where it began — from a brush arbor in 1893, to a one-room building near the old Tyler highway around 1896, to this site since 1911, shaped by renovations across the twentieth century.
As you take in the church, hold in mind that these walls once served as a schoolhouse — the first place African American children in Gladewater could learn. That single fact tells you what this building has always meant to the people around it.
It makes a moving stop on a drive through East Texas, a chance to honor the pioneers who made a place to worship and gather out of almost nothing. Come respectfully, and remember that this is a living congregation, not a relic — its story is still being written.
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
- · Louis Holoway
Themes & tags
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