DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Mt. Moriah Temple Baptist Church in Hunt County. Now settle in, because this is a story about roots — deep ones, the kind that hold when everything around them starts to shake.
It goes back to 1872, when the Cypress District Association formed to organize congregations and raise up church buildings across northeast Texas. That association was the seed of something. The Rev.
Henry C. Riley, a noted missionary evangelist and a member of that association, joined forces with a man named James I. Gilmore — a preacher and a teacher out of Wolfe City — and together they set about organizing a new church.
What they built became Mt. Moriah Temple Baptist Church, and from the moment of its organization in 1896, it got to work. No slow start, no warming up.
Right away, it began to serve the spiritual and social needs of the Norris Community, where most of Commerce's African-American population made their home. Members reached out — food, shelter, clothing, medicine. The kind of giving that doesn't make headlines but keeps people alive.
Now, the church was also looking ahead. Youth ministries, college ministries, and a particular focus on students from Texas A&M University-Commerce. Generation after generation, they were pulling the next wave in close.
But here's where the story gets heavier, and it deserves to be told straight. The early to mid-twentieth century was turbulent — politically, socially — and the Norris Community itself gained a reputation as a violent place during those decades. Through all of it, the marker says, Mt.
Moriah Temple Baptist Church served as a beacon of hope. That's not a small thing. That is an enormous thing.
And when the 1960s arrived with their own fire, the church stepped into the political arena — organizing voting drives, hosting candidates for public offices. The congregation established links with the local branch of the NAACP. Many of the church's influential members left such a mark on the Norris Community that streets there are named for them today.
You can drive those streets. The names are still on the signs. The congregation is still there, still serving the spiritual, physical, and social needs of the Norris Community and the city of Commerce.
More than a century of showing up. Some institutions talk about their roots. Mt.
Moriah Temple Baptist Church is still living them.
What the marker says
Serving Commerce since 1896, Mt. Moriah Temple Baptist Church has been an influential and vital institution since its organization. The congregation has its roots in the Cypress District Association, which formed in 1872 to organize congregations and build church building across northeast Texas. The Rev. Henry C. Riley, a noted missionary evangelist and member of the association, worked with preacher and Wolfe city teacher James I. Gilmore in organizing the new church. Mt. Moriah Temple Baptist Church immediately began to serve the spiritual and social needs of the Norris Community, where most of Commerce's African-American population lived. Church members have reached out to the community by providing food, shelter, clothing and medicine. The congregation has also developed youth and college ministries, focusing particularly on students from Texas A&M University-Commerce. The church served as a beacon of hope in the turbulent social and political decades of the early to mid-20th century, when the Norris community gained a reputation as a violent place. During the 1960s, the church played a vital political role by organizing voting drives and hosting candidates for public offices. The congregation established links with the local branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and many influential members of the city were members of the church; a number of Norris community streets are named for these individuals. Today, the congregation continues to serve the spiritual, physical and social needs of the Norris community and the city of Commerce.