A Community Built From Hope, Love, and Lots of Bricks
By Sarah Houston, 11th grade, Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts
The strong scent of lavender incense, elm stained wooden pews, and 35 hand crafted stained windows mask the lingering history hidden behind the walls of St. Paul’s United Methodist church.
“You can still see the building’s patchwork of hand crafted bricks, which were donated one by one by some of Dallas’ first affluent African Americans,” says Preston Weaver, the executive Pastor at St. Paul’s, who accepted his call to religious ministry in 2004. “St.Paul is more than a church, it’s a monument of history.” Preston says.
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St. Paul United Church was designed in 1912, by Dallas’ first African American architect, Sidney Pitman.
It has been at the same location in what is now the Arts District of Downtown Dallas for more than 145 years, surviving through the harsh climate of the civil rights movement in Dallas, rapidly-growing gentrification and the vast migration of economic colonizers yearning for a taste of “city soil.” But St. Paul’s isn’t just simply standing because of Dallas’s obligatory need for diversity in churches, Weaver believes this historical landmark is still standing for a distinct reason: “For its importance in both the religious community and our community.”
“St. Paul’s has been catering to the African American community since slavery,” Weaver says proudly. “The congregation that greets our members today is the same community that has worshiped on this very site since its establishment by a visionary body of recently freed slaves.”
St. Paul’s dove deeper into its responsibility as a church and provided schooling and shelter for African American children who were displaced from slavery in 1874, giving the deprived children a chance at reading, writing, and life.
“St. Paul’s wouldn’t be here is it wasn’t for our members.” Weaver says as he fiddles with a dense, wooden, figurine from the church’s daycare center. In 1988, the church voted to remain in downtown Dallas despite the impending gentrification of the area. St. Paul’s hadn’t secured a signified spot in the future planning for downtown Dallas and what would become the Arts District. Thanks to its committed and loyal members, the church was able to remain on its birth grounds.
“We are proud that our Church is still standing and will be for years to come.” Weaver says through his broad, friendly grin.
From its founding in a brush arbor to its current standing as the oldest African American community presence in what has become the Dallas Arts District, St. Paul has remained committed to the spiritual disciplines of prayer, hope, love, and a lot of bricks.
