Dallas: One of the oldest Black churches celebrates its 150th anniversary

Dallas: One of the oldest Black churches celebrates its 150th anniversary.

St. Paul United Methodist Church, one of Dallas’s oldest Black churches, is all set to celebrate its 150th anniversary.

One of the oldest Black churches in Dallas is all set to celebrate its 150th anniversary this weekend.

Located in what is now the downtown Arts District, St. Paul United Methodist Church was founded by formerly enslaved people in 1873 and was honored by the city in 1982.

Resident historian Kevin Hamilton, who often helps visitors to learn more about the church, likes to tell visitors how St. Paul’s first congregants met under a “brush arbor” made with tent poles and tree branches.

According to the statement given by senior pastor Lucretia Facen, “The church’s first building was either condemned or burned in the late 1800s.” Few records of St. Paul’s early history still exist, she added.

She added that the church once served as a school for African American children and helped guide African American ministers in partnership with Southern Methodist University’s Perkins School of Theology.

All the members volunteering in this Church or associated with this church one of the other ways are always excited and ready to tell the origin story of the current church building, which a prominent Black architect designed. Hamilton said that construction began around 1901 and took over 20 years to complete