| New hope baptist church 5002 s. Central expressway Dallas, Texas |
Dallas' Oldest African-American Witness
Founded in 1873 by African-Americans
Founded in 1873 by African-Americans
| The History of the New Hope Baptist Church |
On the fourth Sunday of July 1873 six determined Christians met and organized New Hope Baptist Church. For some time they had
been developing a felt need for the establishment of a church fellowship which would meet not only the spiritual needs of the growing
Negro population of Dallas, but the social and cultural needs as well. These were the turbulent days of reconstruction in Texas, and the
year 1873 was particularly difficult for Negroes as the Democrats and Republicans battled for the control of the politics of the State.
The Blacks were caught in the middle. Waves of feeling against Negroes were increasing and new anti-Negro organizations were
being formed. Rural racial tension was mounting because of difficulties over land possession and labor contracts. There was much
talk about becoming free of dependence on Negro labor. Bands of Whites determined to establish complete white supremacy in
politics and economics roamed about rural areas threatening Negroes with loss of crops and bodily harm if they did not yield to slave
like obedience. School houses and churches were burned. Negroes having trouble with whites began flocking to the cities.
Dallas was unusually inviting. It was a booming frontier town which had more than doubled its population within the last twelve
months. It already possessed distinctive elements of permanent growth. It was in the center of a cotton and grain region and the cattle
industry. By a stroke of fate Dallas was chosen as a center of railroad development with trains designed to pass through the city going
around East, West, North, and South. The Texas Almanac for 1872 pointed out that Texas, especially around the Dallas area, was the
poor man's country and that anyone who "has health and will go to work...may in a very few years, have property and stock, and enjoy
every advantage for the family." There were those who were saying that Dallas already was "beginning to put on the airs of a city" and
that with the development of the Trinity River, Dallas would challenge Jefferson, a flourishing East Texas City of 15,000.
1872-1873 was really a boom year. Seven-hundred and twenty-five new buildings and homes were erected at a cost of $1,377,000.
Fifty of them were business houses. Dallas made great strides toward becoming the distributing center of the South-West. Great trains
of wagons bringing goods to market and carrying back goods for retail were coming into town. On one day more than 600 wagons
were counted from Johnson City alone. There was a street car service and a great street improvement program under way. Gas works
were being developed. There were hundreds of good wells and 25 or 30 springs of the best water to be found anywhere. Already, there
was talk of a public water and gas system.
Inhabitants were flocking in from every state in the union and many foreign countries. The growth from a respectable urban town of
about 1500 began in the spring of 1872. On September 1, 1873 the actual resident populations within the corporate limits were 7,063
with suburban making about 8,000 souls. The city was divided into four precincts. Ward I lying West of Sycamore Street and North of
Pacific Avenue had 3,245 inhabitants of whom 457 were Negro. Ward II went West of Sycamore and Live Oak and South of Pacific
had 1,000 inhabitants of whom 216 were Negroes. Ward III East of Sycamore and Live Oak and South of Main had 1,898 inhabitants
of whom 393 were Negroes. Ward IV East of Sycamore and North of Main had 911 inhabitants of whom 156 were Negroes. The total
of 1,222 Blacks were concentrated in Ward 1 and III, Negroes were living on well-known streets in Dallas, such as Boll, Leonard,
Juliette, Bryan, Hawkins, San Jacinto, Flora, Jackson, Padra, and in far North Dallas around what is now Central Expressway.
The first Negro in Dallas County was a slave by the name of Al brought by the Huit family in 1843. When the slaves were freed on
June 19, 1865, there were several hundred in the county. Civic life began with the establishment of Freedman Town on the outskirts of
the city, around Hall, State, Thomas, Washington Streets and Stringtown, farther East around Central, Elm, Main, Ross, Bryan, and San
Jacinto Streets. With racial upheavals in the rural sections and the economic boom, Blacks poured into the Dallas town not only from
the rural, but just like the Whites - from everywhere.
Skilled and unskilled laborers were needed in the building trades, on the railroads in mercantile business, street building and
particularly by the newly arrived wealthy who were already building palatial homes. There were in Dallas 14 hotels, 15 restaurants, 40
boarding houses, 45 saloons. There was a rush of business and professional men from all parts of the union, with over 100 lawyers
and doctors listed. Early Dallas was not famous for its law abiding or religious environment. It was known as a cold and reckless
frontier community with its share of gambling, violence, and crime. There were some 45 saloons and 8 wholesale liquor houses in the
town. The failure of early religious adventures gave the town a hard name. The Texas Almanac for 1872 described it as being "full of
saloons, beer, gardens, gambling halls, etc." The Almanac commented that the leadership was determined to clean up the place and
that Dallas, was on the way to becoming a "handsome place for a good town."
The state of affairs disturbed the old Black settlers who had been associated with the common religious services held by groups of all
the citizens around the Masonic Hall and who had shared the efforts of the white churches to engage in special services for the Black
Community. Newcomers who had enjoyed a settle social environment back home in the "old country," were disturbed by the conditions
they found. Early issues of the Dallas Morning News disclosed social conditions among the Blacks which could no longer be tolerated.
The chief diversion centers were developing along Central Avenue around Elm, on Jackson near the present bus station, and around
the old train station on Pacific. Congested living, no schools, no churches with no organized recreation, the Black population was adrift.
These Christians shuddered for the future of their people who were becoming mad, discouraged, frustrated, and were drifting into
attitudes of not caring. I t was the determination of Black Christians in Dallas to bring order out of chaos. The year 1873 is immortal in
Dallas Black history. The Black community needed stability and respectability, and none could create it better than they who were "the
salt of the earth." This year saw the rise of the Black Church in Dallas. Black Christians looked upon boisterousness as an anti-social
behavioral reaction to frustration. The throwing away of money at the dives that infested the city was delaying real freedom. Negroes
needed something to lift their spirit, something to make them constructive, something to give them the intangible spirit of collective
consciousness, enthusiasm for a common enterprise, and something to bring a new hope.
The decision was made by a han4full of Baptist to organize a church. They got in touch with the Rev. John Hay a traveling missionary
evangelist recommended by the American Baptist Home Mission Society. On July 26, 1873 under his dynamic and wise leadership, six
members of pioneering families met at the log cabin of Sister Mattie Rainey at the Northwest corner of Juliette and Fairmont Streets,
(now Munger Ave. and Fairmount), and organized the first Negro church in Dallas, these original members were Love Vickey Drake,
Mattie Rainey, Emma Robinson, Emma Starks, Jerry and Sally Taylor, and Lucenda Williams. The name New Hope was chosen after
the order of a number of churches organized by the Rev. John Hay throughout the state, symbols of the ,New Hope that had come to
the newly emancipated freedmen. It has been stated well that New Hope was one of those churches which piloted the way for the race
in the days of reconstruction, when millions of our people, like Abraham "went out not knowing whether they went." The organization
of Evening Chapel CME, Bethel AME and St. Paul M.E. Churches soon followed.
The first two years of the New Hope Church were difficult and demanded much house to house and street preaching. The Rev. John
Hay did his job well and within his two year ministry, he built a strong dedicated nucleus around which one of the most dynamic
Christian forces in Dallas has developed. New Hope was born of the faith that through Christian preaching and teaching, a newly freed
people could discover the paths to racial respectability and social greatness ahead. These pioneers went forth' to meet destiny and to
fulfill a dream. They built better than they knew. It is remarkable that this pioneer spirit has persisted and successive generations of
New Hopers, faithful to the original purposes, have been among the first to embrace new opportunities to serve mankind. For a
century, New Hope Church has been unique in its services to the Dallas community. It has continuously inspired black people with a
new hope.
In 1875 the coming of the Rev. A. R. Griggs, to the pastorate of New Hope brought to Dallas, one of the most remarkable religious
leaders in the city's history. His worth to the Baptists of Dallas and Texas cannot be estimated. He designed the pattern and set the
thrust of New Hope for a century. He was born in Hancock, Georgia, in 1850. The last time he saw his mother was at the auction
block when he was sold at. Wetumpka, Alabama. In 1859 he was brought to Texas by the slave owner Green Griggs, and lived around
Chatfield Point, Texas. When freed on July 19, 1865 he was determined to achieve an education, his life ambition. With the help and
encouragement of white Baptist leaders like the late Dr. R. C. Buckner and the Rev. L. W. Coleman, he became one of the most
outstanding Baptist preachers of the nineteenth century. In a letter of December I, 1886 to Griggs, Dr. Buckner spoke glowingly of his
tremendous progress in knowledge and his growth in the ministry.
Rev. Griggs believed that the job of the Church was to minister not only to the spiritual needs of people but also to the personal and
social needs as well. If people are to be helped the Church must recognize their problems and help them to deal with them. He felt that
the Church must follow Jesus' example of attending to the physical needs, and the emotional, social, and economic problems of the
people. The Church leaders had to put feet to their prayers. He believed that the Church working with people needed to give them
encouragement, examples of the best, and to extend their sight for without vision, they would perish. Disappointed by the turn of
Reconstruction they needed renewed faith in mankind, deliverance from the bondage of fear, frustration, shame, sin, guilt,
aimlessness, and hopelessness. One hundred years ago, Griggs was telling Negroes of Texas, that they were somebody, that they
could become even more and encouraging them to take up their beds and walk. Under his leadership, New Hope Church became the
center of improvements among Negroes in Dallas. New Hopers have never forsaken this concept of their Church's ministry and for one
hundred years, in storm and sunshine, it has encouraged the people to go forward.
Rev. Griggs, became pastor in July 1875. The Church had a membership of fifty five and was worshipping in a house, twenty by
thirty, on the east side of Hall St. on a lot given by Sister Lucinda Williams. At once, steps were taken to buy another lot and to build a
house of worship, thirty by forty, costing $2,500. The old building became the New Hope Grammar School and under his direction
became a well organized foundation school at a time when no public education was being provided. He impressed upon his
congregation the fact that if the children were to get ahead their parents and the church had to sacrifice for their education. The school
grew and by 1877 there was need to add higher grades. In 1877 at the Sister Grove Association of white Baptists in its 25th Annual
Session with Antioch Church in Grayson County, Rev. Griggs reported the need. Dr. Buckner called on Whites to help support
missionaries among Negroes and to help establish high schools for them. The Association took up money to help found a Colored
Baptist High School in Dallas. With this encouragement, Rev. Griggs canvassed among Blacks and within four months had $1,000.
been developing a felt need for the establishment of a church fellowship which would meet not only the spiritual needs of the growing
Negro population of Dallas, but the social and cultural needs as well. These were the turbulent days of reconstruction in Texas, and the
year 1873 was particularly difficult for Negroes as the Democrats and Republicans battled for the control of the politics of the State.
The Blacks were caught in the middle. Waves of feeling against Negroes were increasing and new anti-Negro organizations were
being formed. Rural racial tension was mounting because of difficulties over land possession and labor contracts. There was much
talk about becoming free of dependence on Negro labor. Bands of Whites determined to establish complete white supremacy in
politics and economics roamed about rural areas threatening Negroes with loss of crops and bodily harm if they did not yield to slave
like obedience. School houses and churches were burned. Negroes having trouble with whites began flocking to the cities.
Dallas was unusually inviting. It was a booming frontier town which had more than doubled its population within the last twelve
months. It already possessed distinctive elements of permanent growth. It was in the center of a cotton and grain region and the cattle
industry. By a stroke of fate Dallas was chosen as a center of railroad development with trains designed to pass through the city going
around East, West, North, and South. The Texas Almanac for 1872 pointed out that Texas, especially around the Dallas area, was the
poor man's country and that anyone who "has health and will go to work...may in a very few years, have property and stock, and enjoy
every advantage for the family." There were those who were saying that Dallas already was "beginning to put on the airs of a city" and
that with the development of the Trinity River, Dallas would challenge Jefferson, a flourishing East Texas City of 15,000.
1872-1873 was really a boom year. Seven-hundred and twenty-five new buildings and homes were erected at a cost of $1,377,000.
Fifty of them were business houses. Dallas made great strides toward becoming the distributing center of the South-West. Great trains
of wagons bringing goods to market and carrying back goods for retail were coming into town. On one day more than 600 wagons
were counted from Johnson City alone. There was a street car service and a great street improvement program under way. Gas works
were being developed. There were hundreds of good wells and 25 or 30 springs of the best water to be found anywhere. Already, there
was talk of a public water and gas system.
Inhabitants were flocking in from every state in the union and many foreign countries. The growth from a respectable urban town of
about 1500 began in the spring of 1872. On September 1, 1873 the actual resident populations within the corporate limits were 7,063
with suburban making about 8,000 souls. The city was divided into four precincts. Ward I lying West of Sycamore Street and North of
Pacific Avenue had 3,245 inhabitants of whom 457 were Negro. Ward II went West of Sycamore and Live Oak and South of Pacific
had 1,000 inhabitants of whom 216 were Negroes. Ward III East of Sycamore and Live Oak and South of Main had 1,898 inhabitants
of whom 393 were Negroes. Ward IV East of Sycamore and North of Main had 911 inhabitants of whom 156 were Negroes. The total
of 1,222 Blacks were concentrated in Ward 1 and III, Negroes were living on well-known streets in Dallas, such as Boll, Leonard,
Juliette, Bryan, Hawkins, San Jacinto, Flora, Jackson, Padra, and in far North Dallas around what is now Central Expressway.
The first Negro in Dallas County was a slave by the name of Al brought by the Huit family in 1843. When the slaves were freed on
June 19, 1865, there were several hundred in the county. Civic life began with the establishment of Freedman Town on the outskirts of
the city, around Hall, State, Thomas, Washington Streets and Stringtown, farther East around Central, Elm, Main, Ross, Bryan, and San
Jacinto Streets. With racial upheavals in the rural sections and the economic boom, Blacks poured into the Dallas town not only from
the rural, but just like the Whites - from everywhere.
Skilled and unskilled laborers were needed in the building trades, on the railroads in mercantile business, street building and
particularly by the newly arrived wealthy who were already building palatial homes. There were in Dallas 14 hotels, 15 restaurants, 40
boarding houses, 45 saloons. There was a rush of business and professional men from all parts of the union, with over 100 lawyers
and doctors listed. Early Dallas was not famous for its law abiding or religious environment. It was known as a cold and reckless
frontier community with its share of gambling, violence, and crime. There were some 45 saloons and 8 wholesale liquor houses in the
town. The failure of early religious adventures gave the town a hard name. The Texas Almanac for 1872 described it as being "full of
saloons, beer, gardens, gambling halls, etc." The Almanac commented that the leadership was determined to clean up the place and
that Dallas, was on the way to becoming a "handsome place for a good town."
The state of affairs disturbed the old Black settlers who had been associated with the common religious services held by groups of all
the citizens around the Masonic Hall and who had shared the efforts of the white churches to engage in special services for the Black
Community. Newcomers who had enjoyed a settle social environment back home in the "old country," were disturbed by the conditions
they found. Early issues of the Dallas Morning News disclosed social conditions among the Blacks which could no longer be tolerated.
The chief diversion centers were developing along Central Avenue around Elm, on Jackson near the present bus station, and around
the old train station on Pacific. Congested living, no schools, no churches with no organized recreation, the Black population was adrift.
These Christians shuddered for the future of their people who were becoming mad, discouraged, frustrated, and were drifting into
attitudes of not caring. I t was the determination of Black Christians in Dallas to bring order out of chaos. The year 1873 is immortal in
Dallas Black history. The Black community needed stability and respectability, and none could create it better than they who were "the
salt of the earth." This year saw the rise of the Black Church in Dallas. Black Christians looked upon boisterousness as an anti-social
behavioral reaction to frustration. The throwing away of money at the dives that infested the city was delaying real freedom. Negroes
needed something to lift their spirit, something to make them constructive, something to give them the intangible spirit of collective
consciousness, enthusiasm for a common enterprise, and something to bring a new hope.
The decision was made by a han4full of Baptist to organize a church. They got in touch with the Rev. John Hay a traveling missionary
evangelist recommended by the American Baptist Home Mission Society. On July 26, 1873 under his dynamic and wise leadership, six
members of pioneering families met at the log cabin of Sister Mattie Rainey at the Northwest corner of Juliette and Fairmont Streets,
(now Munger Ave. and Fairmount), and organized the first Negro church in Dallas, these original members were Love Vickey Drake,
Mattie Rainey, Emma Robinson, Emma Starks, Jerry and Sally Taylor, and Lucenda Williams. The name New Hope was chosen after
the order of a number of churches organized by the Rev. John Hay throughout the state, symbols of the ,New Hope that had come to
the newly emancipated freedmen. It has been stated well that New Hope was one of those churches which piloted the way for the race
in the days of reconstruction, when millions of our people, like Abraham "went out not knowing whether they went." The organization
of Evening Chapel CME, Bethel AME and St. Paul M.E. Churches soon followed.
The first two years of the New Hope Church were difficult and demanded much house to house and street preaching. The Rev. John
Hay did his job well and within his two year ministry, he built a strong dedicated nucleus around which one of the most dynamic
Christian forces in Dallas has developed. New Hope was born of the faith that through Christian preaching and teaching, a newly freed
people could discover the paths to racial respectability and social greatness ahead. These pioneers went forth' to meet destiny and to
fulfill a dream. They built better than they knew. It is remarkable that this pioneer spirit has persisted and successive generations of
New Hopers, faithful to the original purposes, have been among the first to embrace new opportunities to serve mankind. For a
century, New Hope Church has been unique in its services to the Dallas community. It has continuously inspired black people with a
new hope.
In 1875 the coming of the Rev. A. R. Griggs, to the pastorate of New Hope brought to Dallas, one of the most remarkable religious
leaders in the city's history. His worth to the Baptists of Dallas and Texas cannot be estimated. He designed the pattern and set the
thrust of New Hope for a century. He was born in Hancock, Georgia, in 1850. The last time he saw his mother was at the auction
block when he was sold at. Wetumpka, Alabama. In 1859 he was brought to Texas by the slave owner Green Griggs, and lived around
Chatfield Point, Texas. When freed on July 19, 1865 he was determined to achieve an education, his life ambition. With the help and
encouragement of white Baptist leaders like the late Dr. R. C. Buckner and the Rev. L. W. Coleman, he became one of the most
outstanding Baptist preachers of the nineteenth century. In a letter of December I, 1886 to Griggs, Dr. Buckner spoke glowingly of his
tremendous progress in knowledge and his growth in the ministry.
Rev. Griggs believed that the job of the Church was to minister not only to the spiritual needs of people but also to the personal and
social needs as well. If people are to be helped the Church must recognize their problems and help them to deal with them. He felt that
the Church must follow Jesus' example of attending to the physical needs, and the emotional, social, and economic problems of the
people. The Church leaders had to put feet to their prayers. He believed that the Church working with people needed to give them
encouragement, examples of the best, and to extend their sight for without vision, they would perish. Disappointed by the turn of
Reconstruction they needed renewed faith in mankind, deliverance from the bondage of fear, frustration, shame, sin, guilt,
aimlessness, and hopelessness. One hundred years ago, Griggs was telling Negroes of Texas, that they were somebody, that they
could become even more and encouraging them to take up their beds and walk. Under his leadership, New Hope Church became the
center of improvements among Negroes in Dallas. New Hopers have never forsaken this concept of their Church's ministry and for one
hundred years, in storm and sunshine, it has encouraged the people to go forward.
Rev. Griggs, became pastor in July 1875. The Church had a membership of fifty five and was worshipping in a house, twenty by
thirty, on the east side of Hall St. on a lot given by Sister Lucinda Williams. At once, steps were taken to buy another lot and to build a
house of worship, thirty by forty, costing $2,500. The old building became the New Hope Grammar School and under his direction
became a well organized foundation school at a time when no public education was being provided. He impressed upon his
congregation the fact that if the children were to get ahead their parents and the church had to sacrifice for their education. The school
grew and by 1877 there was need to add higher grades. In 1877 at the Sister Grove Association of white Baptists in its 25th Annual
Session with Antioch Church in Grayson County, Rev. Griggs reported the need. Dr. Buckner called on Whites to help support
missionaries among Negroes and to help establish high schools for them. The Association took up money to help found a Colored
Baptist High School in Dallas. With this encouragement, Rev. Griggs canvassed among Blacks and within four months had $1,000.
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Note: The History of the New Hope Baptist Church is copyrighted material and may not be copied, reproduced or
used in any manner without the express written permission of the New Hope Baptist Church.
used in any manner without the express written permission of the New Hope Baptist Church.