St. John Missionary Baptist Church

Duane's take

Here's my telling of the official marker for St. John Missionary Baptist Church, standing in Fort Bend County. Now settle in, because this story starts before the ink was dry on freedom itself.

After the Civil War, the people who had been enslaved on the DeWalt Plantation gathered themselves together, led by a man named Reverend Dave King, and in 1869 they formed St. John Baptist Church, Colored. That congregation rose up out of the ash and uncertainty of Reconstruction, and it did not stop rising.

Come 1900, a woman named Anna Cartwright Roberts deeded two acres in the David Bright League to the church and to County School District Number Nineteen. Land of their own. Roots going into the ground.

Then in 1935, a man named George L. Dew purchased the property and sold two acres in the William Stafford League to the church so it could relocate. That congregation packed up and moved, the way communities sometimes have to do, not because the faith moved, but because the ground beneath it shifted.

In the 1960s, the church building itself was repositioned to the opposite side of the property and enlarged, using materials from the former school. Think on that a moment. The schoolhouse gave its bones to the church.

Then in the 1970s, a rear addition was built, and the building grew again. Now, a story this long is not without its hard chapters. In 2006, an arson fire heavily damaged the property.

Heavily damaged. That is a careful way to say something devastating. And yet.

St. John Missionary Baptist Church has held Juneteenth picnics, celebrations, activities, and continual services for the surrounding communities across all of it, across the moves and the additions and the fire and everything in between. From 1869 forward, that congregation has been the kind of constant that a community builds its memory around.

That is not nothing. That is everything.

What the marker says

After the Civil War, former DeWalt Plantation slaves, led by Rev. Dave King, formed St. John Baptist Church (Colored) in 1869. In 1900, Anna Cartwright Roberts deeded two acres in the David Bright League to the church and County School District #19. In 1935, George L. Dew purchased the property and sold two acres in the William Stafford League to the church to relocate. In the 1960s, the church building was repositioned to the opposite side of the property and enlarged with materials from the former school. A rear addition was built in the 1970s. A 2006 arson fire heavily damaged the property. The church has held Juneteenth picnics, celebrations, activities and continual services for the surrounding communities. (2016)