Baylor University was the first coeducational university in the South, and only the second in the country. Even so, the education women received at Baylor for many years was fundamentally different than the men’s. Women stayed within the bounds of the more “feminine” degrees such as education or music, and access to on-campus organizations was severely limited. Female students were held to high standards and kept under close supervision by the Dean of Women. They had to adhere to a strict dress code (superintendents could remove undesirable clothing from student’s closets), attend Sunday school and church services every Sunday, sign out any time they left campus, observe a strict curfew, and keep good grades in order to be allowed to date, ride in a car, or leave campus.
As women’s rights activists made headway in the early twentieth century, coed institutions received more and more female applicants. Baylor was no exception. In the 1920s, Baylor received so many applications from women that they had to turn them away due to a lack of space. At the time, Georgia Burleson Hall and a few small annexes were the only women’s residential spaces on campus, and women who were not from Waco were not allowed to live off campus due to university administration’s desire to keep them protected and out of trouble. The male students, by comparison, were not subject to the same levels of supervision as the women and were trusted to live off campus. The ones that did live on campus were housed in then-brand-new Brooks Hall.
Despite being advertised as better than the accommodations at other universities, Burleson Hall was cramped, leaky, outdated, and only housed around 200 women, and the annexes could hold around 200 altogether. In the mid-1920s, the number of women enrolled at Baylor was around one thousand. In light of this space issue, President Samuel Palmer Brooks began planning the addition of a new women’s dormitory. The Woman’s Missionary Union of Texas, having observed the piety and Christian attitudes of Baylor students, took an interest and pledged to help the university raise funds for this new building. They advertised in Waco newspapers to secure donations from the community, and sororities on campus aided them with fundraisers.
In 1928, a groundbreaking ceremony took place at the site of the new dormitory on the corner of Seventh and Speight. Baylor alumna, renowned author, and Columbia University professor Dorothy Scarborough addressed the spectators at this event. Scarborough emphasized the importance of remembering the exceptional women in Baylor’s history and made a commitment to be present at similar events in the future. Baylor administrators overseeing the project hoped that the groundbreaking might serve as a reminder to the community that the project was still underway, and hopefully inspire them to resume their donations, which had decreased significantly.
Woman’s Memorial Dormitory, named in honor of the Woman’s Missionary Union, was finished in 1930 and cost approximately $350,000. Securing funding for this project was no small feat, as at this time the country was suffering in the early days of the Great Depression. At this time, the building could house 245 women, and boasted a dining hall, a chapel, a study hall, and two banquet rooms. On October 15, 1930, the university suspended classes for two hours so that faculty, staff, and students could attend the ribbon-cutting ceremony of the new dormitory. President Brooks, speaking at this ceremony, thanked the Woman’s Missionary Union for making the idea for the new dormitory into a reality, and further thanked all the women of Texas for their contributions to the project. Mrs. F. S. Davis, president of the Woman’s Missionary Union, also addressed the attendees, speaking of her hopes that the women of the dormitory would grow in their faith and be strong, Christian leaders in their community. “The fervent prayer,” she said, “that wells up from the heart of the Women’s Missionary Union today is that ‘our daughters may be as polished cornerstones after the similitude of a palace.’ For truly you, our daughters, are our glory and our crown.”
In 2005, Memorial and neighboring hall Alexander became home to the university’s Honors College Living and Learning Community, or HC-LLC (often called the Hick-Lick), with Memorial housing the women and Alexander housing the men. Four years later the university upgraded the community to the status of residential college. The Honors Residential College is known across campus for its tight-knit community, goofy traditions, and, in the words of one former Baylor professor,its “common love of uncommon things.” In 2023, the university renovated both Memorial and Alexander, updating facilities, rooms, and common spaces, as well as adding the new Carona Family Commons, a two-floor shared common area connecting the two buildings.
Woman’s Memorial Dormitory, now simply called Memorial Hall, has been a welcoming home away from home to Baylor women for almost 100 years. Memorial was instrumental in improving women’s access to education at Baylor when it was built, and the impact it and its founders had on the university is still visible.
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]]>Seeking to provide refuge to children and families in need, the Evangelia Settlement Home opened in 1908. Established by religious reformers Ethel Dickson and Nell Symes, the home aimed to care for the least of these throughout Waco’s community for nearly a century.
Evangelia Settlement was part of a broader settlement house movement that began in Great Britain and moved to the United States. In the late nineteenth century, white, middle- and upper-class women, often motivated by their Christian faith, began to establish homes for those in low-income areas with few resources. Settlement houses popped up across the country. Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr established one of the most well-known settlement houses, Hull House, in Chicago, Illinois. As the movement spread across the country in the early twentieth century, an estimated eighteen settlements opened throughout Texas, including in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, and Waco.
Inspired by a traveling evangelist who spoke in Waco, Dickson and Symes opened a small nursery on Webster Street. Initially a modest room located on Thirteenth Street, Waco’s Evangelia Settlement began as a humble effort to care for children whose mothers worked as sewing machine operators at Slayden-Kirskey Woolen Mills. Seeking to expand Evangelia’s reach as a charitable, educational, and religious institution, the founders partnered with Protestant churches in the area to garner community support and to secure funding.
By 1910, with financial aid from local churches, volunteers for Evangelia Settlement began working from a rental house. The next year, additional donations from Waco citizens enabled the opening of Evangelia’s own home, complete with a playground and five full-time staff. The State of Texas issued a charter for Evangelia Settlement Home in June 1912. Though backed by the state government, Evangelia’s board members and volunteers continued to depend on community support.
Donations and funding from those across Waco provided necessary aid for the growing settlement house. An upper floor and additional rooms were added to Evangelia in the late 1910s, and the Karem Shrine constructed a building for boys and a space for kindergarten classes in 1927. The Waco Community Chest, organized in 1924, regularly allocated money to Evangelia, and other generous donors also helped improve the building. For instance, donations from the Cooper Foundation, United Way, and the Andrew J. Dossett family facilitated the construction of a cottage for infants. Later in 1953, Evangelia operated with financial support from the United Fund of Waco and continued to improve the building on site. With each expansion, Evangelia Settlement grew in capacity and provided additional children with housing, meals, and educational and religious instruction.
In partnership with the Salvation Army and the YMCA, Evangelia joined the “Yes-For-Youth” Building Fund Campaign in 1956. The fund enabled the construction of a new building, which opened in June 1958. From 510 South Twelfth Street, Evangelia volunteers and workers continued their efforts to serve children and families throughout the community. By the late 1950s, Evangelia was authorized to care for sixty-two children and offered twenty-four-hour day care. To subsidize costs, parents paid on an individual basis, and the price of care depended on each family’s financial situation. Some children stayed for free, while others paid around five dollars a week per child. For those who placed their children in twenty-four-hour care, Evangelia sought to provide parental education so that children could eventually return home. Still, depending on the family’s circumstances, others were placed in foster homes and at times, orphanages.
Hoping to accept the growing number of interested families, Evangelia continued to expand throughout the mid-twentieth century. Despite Evangelia’s broad efforts, though, the institution remained segregated from its founding until the mid-1960s and only offered resources to white parents and children. Other organizations, including the Joyce Stamps Nursery and the Latin American Neighborhood Center provided care for Black and Latino children in the area.
By the 1970s, Evangelia offered services to over one hundred children and continued to partner with community organizations to ensure children received necessary care. Evangelia held kindergarten classes for children not yet enrolled in school, and for those who attended Waco Public Schools, Evangelia provided after-school care to assist working parents. The settlement house worked with social workers, public school teachers, nurses, doctors, and psychologists. Providing resources to children and families in need remained central to Evangelia’s efforts.
Evangelia Settlement continued to operate in Waco until the state denied their licensure in 2007. After advocacy from Buck Cole, whose family found refuge at Evangelia Settlement in the mid-twentieth century, the Texas Historical Commission placed a marker at the site in 2022. While the settlement house no longer exists in its original form, the site now accommodates EOAC Head Start, an organization that provides educational opportunities and childcare to families across McLennan and Fall Counties. Other organizations in Waco also heed the message of communal care that Evangelia promoted. The Good Neighbor House, founded in 2016, draws on the settlement house movement as its volunteers and workers aim to provide resources and enrichment for Waco’s youth. Through these organizations, Evangelia Settlement’s effort to support under resourced children and families endures.
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]]>St. James United Methodist Church, originally a Methodist Episcopal church, has existed almost as long as the city of Waco itself. Founded in 1874 by Anderson Brack, a formerly enslaved man, the congregation started with roughly fifty-three members. On the banks of the Brazos River, they worshipped, communed together, and worked to establish a permanent brick-and-mortar building that would serve as a central location for their Christian community. Along with the church, St. James also established a school that provided education to Black children in the Waco area. As they sought to secure a steady meeting place, though, they faced difficulty and discrimination.
Built in 1889, their original building at Second and Ross Streets was the first brick church for African Americans in Waco. St. James, established after Mt. Zion, was the second African American church in the city. After the city of Waco condemned their new building, they built a larger tabernacle in 1909 in the same location. They worshipped there until 1922. That year, the San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railroad Company purchased the property, citing eminent domain, and the St. James congregation built once more. This time, on Second and Clay Avenue.
Under the leadership of Pastor C. S. Williams, the congregation broke ground on the church in March 1924. Utilizing bricks from their previous tabernacles inside the new structure, St. James memorialized and honored the history of their church. Architect Carleton Adams, who garnered statewide and national attention for his home and building designs in San Antonio, developed plans for the Tudor Gothic-style structure. While members were eager to meet in the new location, the congregation experienced financial strain in the years to come after accumulating $85,000 in debt to construct the building, which took thirty-two years to repay.
At Second and Clay, St. James committed themselves to racial justice initiatives in the community as well as interracial partnerships. During the Great Depression, they offered a daily soup kitchen to Wacoans in need. They also held meetings for the “Waco Forward” movement of the 1920s that launched as a local effort to assist those struggling amid economic stagnation. Waco Forward hoped to improve Waco’s economy and usher in an era of progress and stability. St. James also hosted other interracial events, including concerts and women’s groups, as well as a “Race Relations Sunday” service in February 1945. There, they called for attendees to “build a nation and a world where there shall be no discrimination on the basis of color, creed, or national origin.”
After its formation in 1936, the McLennan County chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) met multiple times at St. James. At an “NAACP Sunday” event in 1951, which occurred during the civil rights movement, the McLennan County chapter formed a plan that addressed local and national needs. They also hosted another notable meeting in 1955, where the organization expressed their support of the “Free by ‘63” campaign. This campaign effort raised funds for numerous legal cases taking place during the movement. Those a part of the NAACP and the church sought to address and end discrimination in Texas and across the country.
Important to Waco and St. James, multiple prominent members worked within and outside of the church. Robert L. Smith, one of the first Black Americans elected to the Texas House of Representatives in 1894, attended St. James. Prior to his arrival in Waco, Smith established the Farmers’ Improvement Society, which aided farmers who had fallen into extensive debt. Inescapable debt particularly impacted previously enslaved people who turned to sharecropping and tenant farming after emancipation. As Smith worked for these communities in Waco, he also served as a steward and legal adviser for the church. J. J. Flewellen and Professor J. S. Henry, principals at Carver High and Kirk Elementary, also attended St. James. Both schools offered educational opportunities to Black students in Waco. Lonnie Morris Belle Hodges, the church’s historian, strove to bring attention to the history of St. James. As the only living descendent of St. James’s charter members with continuing membership, Hodges worked to attain recognition for the history of the congregation and building. In 1986, the building received a Recorded Texas Historical Marker due to her efforts.
The congregation continued to grow over the years, exceeding over six hundred members during their strongest periods. Yet, by 2015, St. James had dwindled once more to fewer than sixty congregants. Deciding to focus more on fellowship and community rather than upkeep of an aging structure, they placed the historic building on the market. The church received a City of Waco Historic Landmark in 2017 and was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on September 12, 2019. St. James remains the only religious structure on the National Register of Historic Places in Waco. The building, purchased by local Wacoans Amy and Lane Murphy, remains a prominent historical landmark for the city. As they transition the church into a restaurant and event space, they plan to preserve the history of the congregation and the building. Members of St. James now meet in another location in Waco, joining with Wesley United Methodist Church each Sunday. There, they continue to commune and worship together. Through the remaining congregation and renovation efforts at Second and Clay, the long history of St. James United Methodist Church persists in Waco.
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]]>Despite many obstacles, Robert Gilbert offered “no excuses” when he found himself at the forefront of enacting racial integration and advancing civil rights in Waco. His efforts left an indelible mark on the city and Baylor University.
He was born on December 27, 1941, the fourth child of the Rev. B. F. Gilbert and his wife, Fannie Mae. The Gilbert household prized faith in God, education, and community service. Attending Waco’s segregated schools, Gilbert wanted to be a lawyer advancing the rights of African Americans. After graduating from A. J. Moore High School in 1960, he enrolled at Paul Quinn College. Following several years of study at Paul Quinn, Gilbert and his teachers realized a future legal career required he obtain a degree from Baylor University, which had only recently—in November 1963—voted to integrate.
Administrative and legal decisions do not generate immediate cultural change, a reality that confronted Gilbert as he began his studies at Baylor in summer 1965. The alienation and animosity he felt as a child growing up near the campus continued to form a large part of his experience as a student. He experienced isolation from his classmates, and while some faculty treated him with dignity, others proved overtly racist. Gilbert majored in history, which he enjoyed, but he soon acknowledged that a legal career was increasingly unlikely. For most of his adolescence, Gilbert resisted pastoral ministry, but soon the call to preach became too acute to ignore. In addition, doctors advised him that his poor health could not handle the stresses of practicing law.
Since the age of fourteen, Gilbert suffered from various types of arthritis that left him in constant pain and with impaired mobility. In his teens, it proved manageable with only an occasional flare-up. However, in July 1963, his condition deteriorated rapidly. Gilbert recovered and returned to college, though he now required a cane for support. Later on, joint deterioration led to numerous surgeries and eventually put him in a wheelchair. The visible specter of his arthritis plagued Gilbert for his entire life, but it also became the source of his testimony and vocation. Grappling with his arthritis proved God’s way of grabbing hold of Gilbert, calling him to a life of ministry and teaching, as well as instilling in him the faith and endurance required to overcome all impediments that lay ahead.
Gilbert’s faith-filled perseverance equipped him to break barriers and gave him an unquenchable thirst for justice. On June 2, 1967, Robert Gilbert became the first African American student to graduate from Baylor. By virtue of alphabetical order, Gilbert preceded his classmate Barbara Walker, who that day became Baylor’s first female African American graduate. After his graduation, Gilbert continued pioneering as the first black teacher at the all-white Tennyson Middle School. Another first included his summer role as assistant director of Baylor’s Upward Bound program to help train low-income students for college. Gilbert carried on all this work while also actively engaging in pastoral ministry.
To enrich his ministry, Gilbert returned to Baylor in 1970 to pursue a graduate degree in religion. However, another devastating turn in his health in 1971 left him unable to finish his studies, but not to pastor. He succeeded his father into the pulpits of Baptist churches in Bremond and Chilton, before in 1978, beginning a more than decade-long ministry at Waco’s Carver Park Missionary Baptist Church. Under his leadership, the congregation grew exponentially. Gilbert’s dynamic sermons and visible witness attracted people to him and to the gospel. His life held the power to convict and inspire, not only the people in his congregations, but all Wacoans as well.
The 1970s saw Gilbert take up his trailblazing mantel and use his status in the community to advocate for civil rights. Upset about the glacial pace of integration in Waco schools after the 1954 Brown decision, Gilbert served as the plaintiff in the NAACP case against the Waco Independent School District. His suit, combined with a similar case from Waco’s Hispanic community, became the 1973 Arvizu v. Waco ISD decision mandating the integration of several racially identifiable schools in Waco. In 1976, he was elected the first black member of Waco’s school board. Outside of education, Gilbert helmed the Association for Selective Career Opportunities that aimed to advance the hiring of minorities in fields where they were underrepresented. His experiences at the forefront of integration made him a catalyst for creating opportunities for other African Americans in Waco.
When he died on November 11, 1992, Robert Gilbert left a rich legacy of ministry and activism. In the last years of his life, through pain and numerous health struggles, he maintained his pastoral ministry, while also advocating for Waco and Baylor to diversify hiring. Today Gilbert’s communities honor his impact. For example, the Waco NAACP awards scholarships to high school graduates named for the Gilbert family. Captured by his 1988 autobiography title, No Excuses Accepted, Gilbert believed everyone was capable of achieving their goals, no matter the impediments. Grounded in faith and in pursuit of justice, he testified to that belief with his life, calling others to do the same.
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]]>During the 1950s and 1960s, Rev. Marvin C. Griffin strove to bring the Christian gospel to bear upon the civil rights struggle in Waco. As minister of New Hope Baptist Church from 1951 to 1969, Reverend Griffin preached a message of spiritual vitality and social action, advocating for racial equality during a period of heightened tensions among Waco’s white, black, and Hispanic communities. Griffin’s unswerving emphasis on racial justice and reconciliation established him as a respected leader throughout Central Texas.
The future minister was born in Wichita, Kansas, in 1923 and, after several years in Oklahoma, spent his later childhood and adolescence in Dallas, Texas. Like many African American families in their community, the Griffin family suffered the effects of race-based inequality. The scarcity of Depression-era jobs for black men meant that Griffin’s mother supported the family on wages from her job as housekeeper in a white home. The young Griffin, however, felt called to become a preacher and exhibited academic promise at an early age.
After high school, Griffin entered Bishop College—at that time the only Texas institution offering a degree in religion to African American students. There he met Lois King, whom he married in 1944 and with whom he would serve churches and communities throughout Texas for over six decades. After graduating from Bishop in 1943, Griffin earned a bachelor of divinity in theology from the famed Oberlin College in Ohio. Oberlin’s emphasis on the social implications of the Christian message shaped Griffin’s approach to civil rights in the years to come. Griffin graduated from Oberlin in 1947 and soon took a position as director of city missions for the Southern Baptist Convention’s Home Mission Board in Dallas, Texas. There, the young graduate worked with people in need from white and black neighborhoods alike. In this way, Griffin’s diverse childhood, educational, and professional experiences allowed him to cultivate relationships across racial and economic lines.
In 1951, Waco’s New Hope Baptist Church invited Griffin to fill in as interim pastor when its own minister, Dr. Joseph Newton Jenkins, fell ill. This temporary position became permanent when Jenkins passed away, and the twenty-seven-year-old seminary graduate found himself the pastor of one of Waco’s oldest and most prominent African American churches. The young minister took to the position quickly, however, pioneering a radio ministry and citywide transportation system to the church on Sunday. All the while, Griffin devoted himself to theological study; in 1955 he became the first African American to receive a master of religious education from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.
Griffin also brought a renewed emphasis on the social resonances of the Christian gospel, preaching the importance of advocating for justice in the wake of pervasive racial discrimination. In Waco, the new pastor entered an environment in which white hostility was prevalent and in which local blacks were hesitant to confront racial divides for fear that their jobs, social standing, and physical safety might be jeopardized.
Their fears were not unfounded. When initial efforts to integrate Waco schools following the Brown v. Board of Education decision were stymied by public backlash, it appeared that the desegregation project had reached a standstill. White leaders took no initiative toward implementing the federal ruling, and area blacks balked at taking any serious form of action. For the remainder of the decade, little progress was made in the dismantling of legalized segregation.
Thanks to leaders such as Marvin Griffin, the tide began to turn during the 1960s, bringing about an integration that proved far more peaceful—albeit far more gradual—than many cities in the South. As the nationwide struggle for civil rights grew more visible and more tumultuous, Waco minorities became increasingly vocal in their calls for desegregation and equal access to employment. Leading white Chamber of Commerce members—dubbed “The Committee of Fifty”—were anxious to avoid the protests, sit-ins, and violence plaguing much of the South. When the committee expressed the desire to cooperate with Waco’s black community leaders in desegregating the city at long last, Marvin Griffin set to work forming a council comprised of seven prominent African American men and women. With Griffin as its chairman, the council sought input from all corners of Waco’s black population to formulate a list of the most pressing racial issues to be remedied. These included public accommodations, the use of recreational facilities, access to jobs, and representation on boards and commissions.
The Committee of Fifty proved open to cooperation. It and Griffin’s council were careful, however, to keep their deliberations secret, lest they arouse anger from the white community. Thus, in 1961, they privately crafted a plan for the gradual and quiet desegregation of Waco businesses, cooperating with journalists to ensure that the press would refrain from reporting on the committee’s existence and the instances of desegregation that followed. Facility by facility, the group worked with business owners and the designated African American citizens—often Griffin and the members of his council—who would patronize each establishment. By means of enforcement, several members of the committee threatened to fire employees who did not carry out the new policy of desegregation. By 1963, popular Waco eating establishments, hospitals, and department stores had desegregated in this manner. Additionally, Baylor president Abner McCall—a member of the Committee of Fifty—began to take steps in the desegregation of Baylor University, which was finally desegregated in 1964.
Public desegregation, however, was only the first step in a long and arduous road toward a more racially equitable society. Accordingly, Griffin remained unwavering in his advocacy for Waco’s black community even after this initial wave of desegregation. The pastor worked to secure job opportunities for Waco’s African American citizens, and he also continued to fight for the desegregation of the Waco Independent School District, which would ultimately desegregate by federal court order in the early 1970s. Griffin also continued to facilitate racial reconciliation in local churches as well, exchanging pulpits with white preachers such as Rhea Gray and holding interracial book clubs in homes to facilitate productive dialogue on issues of race. In the political sphere, Griffin worked to expand black voter registration and galvanized his congregation and others into a politically active community.
In 1969, Griffin accepted an offer to become pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Austin, Texas—a position in which he served until his retirement on July 31, 2011. Here the twin goals of Christian faithfulness and social action remained paramount in Griffin’s ministry. In 1998, the pastor spearheaded the creation of the East Austin Economic Development Corporation, which offered crucial services to underprivileged populations. The spiritual and social leader continued to advance in learning and education even in latter decades of his career; in 1990, Griffin received his doctor of ministry from Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary. Throughout his long and storied life, Griffin never wavered in his insistence that the Christian message was inseparable from the issue of racial justice and community involvement, and he continued to encourage Christian faithfulness and social activism among his congregants at Ebenezer.
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]]>For most of their history, the Davidians and later the Branch Davidians had lived in isolation from the Waco community. As a city with deep religious roots, Branch Davidians were generally accepted and allowed to practice their religious beliefs without interference. The group had garnered some attention from local media in 1987 due to a shootout at the new Mount Carmel Center. But five years later, the Branch Davidians were thrust into the national spotlight.
Vernon Howell, who changed his name to David Koresh in 1990, had assumed leadership of the Branch Davidians and increasingly incorporated radical ideas into his messages. He claimed that God instructed him to build an Army of God to prepare for the end of days, and encouraged the stockpile of ammunition and weapons. Koresh also stated he was told by God to procreate with the women in the group to establish a “House of David,” and to this end took several wives. While never directly claiming to be Jesus himself, Koresh had proclaimed that he was the final prophet.
On a routine delivery to the compound in 1992, local UPS representative Larry Gilbreath discovered firearms, inert grenade casings, and black powder in a broken package. Gilbreath contacted authorities, and in May, Chief Deputy Daniel Weyenberg of the McLennan County Sheriff’s Department contacted the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF). A formal investigation was launched in June that year, and the ATF began surveillance from a house across the road from Mount Carmel Center. In addition to allegations that Koresh and his followers were stockpiling illegal weapons, Koresh was also accused of sexual abuse. On February 27, 1993, the Waco-Tribune Herald began publishing “The Sinful Messiah” series, which alleged that Koresh had physically abused children at Mount Carmel and had committed statutory rape by taking several underage women as brides.
The ATF obtained search and arrest warrants for Koresh and other followers on weapons charges, noting the many firearms the group had accumulated. The ATF originally planned their raid of Mount Carmel for Monday, March 1, 1993, using the code name “Showtime.” The date was changed to February 28 in response to the Waco Tribune-Herald’s series on Koresh, which the ATF had tried to prevent from being published. Any advantage of surprise was lost early that morning when a KWTX-TV reporter, who had been tipped off about the raid, asked a mail carrier for directions, who was actually Koresh’s brother-in-law. The ATF commander ordered the raid move forward, despite being informed that the Branch Davidians were aware that ATF agents were coming. At 9:45 a.m., a gun battle began. ATF agents stated they heard shots coming from within the compound, while Branch Davidian survivors claimed the first shots came from ATF agents outside. By the time a ceasefire was announced at 11:30 a.m., four ATF agents had been killed, and another sixteen had been wounded. Five branch Davidians were killed, and later that day, a sixth was killed by ATF agents. That evening, four children were permitted to leave Mount Carmel, and Koresh, who had been wounded, was interviewed by CNN and spoke to KRLD in Dallas.
For the next forty-nine days, the FBI Hostage Rescue Team worked to negotiate a peaceful end to the siege. In the first few days, a supposed breakthrough was made when Koresh agreed that the Branch Davidians would leave the compound in return for a message, recorded by Koresh, being broadcast on national radio. But Koresh told negotiators that God had instructed him to remain in the building and wait. Despite this, nineteen children were released. As time passed, the FBI used increasingly aggressive techniques, such as sleep deprivation by means of all-night broadcasts and recordings of loud noises and pop music, to try to force all the Branch Davidians out. Koresh later forced a group of eleven followers to leave, and they were arrested as material witnesses, with one person charged with conspiracy to murder.
On April 19, US Attorney General Janet Reno approved recommendations by the FBI to mount an assault. Explosives were used to puncture holes in the walls of the buildings of the main compound so tear gas could be pumped in, in hopes of flushing the Branch Davidians out without harming them. Around noon, three fires broke out in different parts of the building and spread quickly. While the government maintains that the fires were started deliberately by Branch Davidians, others, including some Branch Davidian survivors, believe that the fires were started either accidentally or deliberately by the FBI. Only nine people left the building during the fire. The remaining seventy-six Branch Davidians, including children, were killed either by rubble, suffocation from the effects of the fire, or shot. Footage of the blaze was broadcast live by television crews, who had remained near the compound throughout the siege.
Extensive investigations took place following the siege, and the events that transpired in Waco transformed the way federal officials conducted future operational tactics. Four months after the fire, a federal grand jury indicted twelve of the surviving Branch Davidians for aiding and abetting the murder of federal officers, along with the unlawful possession of firearms. Four members were acquitted, and the remaining eight were convicted, but only for firearms-related offenses. By 2007, all members had been released from prison. Nothing remains of the original compound, but a new Branch Davidian community now exists on the property called Branch, The Lord Our Righteousness.
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]]>Often confused with the Davidians, the Branch Davidians are a splinter group organized in 1955 by Ben Roden following the death of Davidian founder Victor T. Houteff. Houteff had founded the Davidians, a small Adventist reform movement, in 1929. Six years later, Houteff and thirty-seven of his followers resettled two miles from Waco, where they established the Mount Carmel Center. The community flourished there, growing to around ninety people by 1955. Houteff had complete authority, viewed by his followers as the only person who could reveal Biblical secrets about the end of time. Among his teachings, Houteff stated that he would not die, but would lead his people to old Jerusalem and therefore to the heavenly Canaan. Because of this, Houteff’s sudden death at Hillcrest Hospital, caused by heart failure, came as a huge shock to the Davidians. The loss of their leader led to instability within church organization leadership, along with the formation of several splinter groups.
Prior to his passing, Houteff had appointed his second wife, Florence Houteff, to lead the Davidians until the Lord chose another prophet to take charge. Under her leadership, the community sold their property near Lake Waco for residential development and resettled in 1957. They resettled on a 941-acre farm located nine miles east of Waco near Elk, which they called New Mount Carmel. Florence Houteff and the other leaders predicted the imminent establishment of God’s Kingdom on April 22, 1959. They called on members to gather at New Mount Carmel before that date, which coincided with Passover. About nine hundred gathered, but when signs did not appear, the Davidians began to disperse quickly.
While this gathering took place, Benjamin Roden, a former Seventh-day Adventist who had accepted the teachings of The Shepherd’s Rod in 1946, announced that he was the sign the Davidians were seeking. The failure of the prophecy discredited Florence Houteff, and a small following looked to Roden as their new prophet. Roden’s Branch Davidians claimed the New Mount Carmel property, which was now seventy-seven acres. Roden centered his teachings on the significance of the restored state of Israel, which would be a sign of preparation for Christ’s return to earth. Roden traveled to Israel and established a small community of followers there prior to his death in 1978.
Lois Roden assumed leadership of the Branch Davidians following her husband’s death. Her teachers centered on the female nature of the Holy Spirit and the co-dominion of women and men in the church. This corresponded with ideas circulating from the Feminist Movement in the 1970s and the growing egalitarian teachings of many Adventist sects. Beginning in 1979, Roden began publishing Shekinah, a short-lived journal on women’s place in religion. She also often spoke to media outlets about the femininity of the Holy Spirit, hoping to spread her teachings to a wider audience.
Throughout Lois Roden’s leadership, her son George Roden claimed to be the next heir apparent of the Branch Davidians. However, he was not widely respected within the community, and his own mother did not support his claim. She had aligned herself with Vernon Howell, a young, charismatic Bible teacher who had first arrived at Mount Carmel in 1981. After briefly leaving, he had returned in the mid-1980s and gained support and a growing following among the Branch Davidians. Despite this, George Roden was able to gain control of Mount Carmel in 1985, expelling Howell’s rival faction at gunpoint. Howell and his followers resettled in Palestine, Texas, but returned to Mount Carmel two years later to gain control of the Mount Carmel property. Eight men, including Howell, exchanged gunfire with Roden on November 3, 1987, before being arrested and charged with attempted murder. Howell’s followers were all acquitted, and Howell’s case was declared a mistrial. Because Roden owed thousands of dollars in unpaid taxes on Mount Carmel, Howell and his followers were able to raise the funds and reclaim the property.
Howell perpetuated many distinct Davidian traditions, including an authoritarian leader, communal life separate from society, and the anticipation of the imminent end of the world. In 1990, he changed his name to David Koresh, signifying his messianic role in carrying out a divinely commissioned task of defeating the enemies of God. While previous leaders of the Davidians, such as Houteff, had been pacifists, Koresh began stockpiling weapons and ammunition to defend the faithful. Authorities suspected the Branch Davidians possessed illegal firearms, and on February 28, 1993, the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms raided the compound, beginning the fifty-one day Branch Davidian Siege.
Today, both Davidians and Branch Davidians exist in scattered communities in the United States and around the world. A small group of Branch Davidians live and worship at Mount Carmel today, called The Branch, The Lord Our Righteousness. This group claims David Koresh twisted Biblical teachings, but other Branch Davidians—some also living at Mount Carmel—still align themselves with Koresh and his version of the Branch Davidian faith.
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]]>Waco has deep Christian roots, but other religions, such as the Bahá’í Faith, also have a longstanding history in Central Texas.
The Bahá’í Faith was first established in Iran in 1863 by Bahá’u’lláh who taught that religion is progressively revealed by one god through messengers of god. These messengers, including Buddha, Jesus, Muhammad, and Bahá’u’lláh, are the founders of the major world religions throughout history. Bahá’ís believe these major religions are fundamentally unified, though they varied in social practices and interpretations over time. Three core principals establish the basis of Bahá’í teachings: the unity of God, the unity of religion, and the unity of humanity.
The Bahá’í Faith has been an active part of religious and social life in America since the late 1800s. The faith was further bolstered when Abdu’l-Bahá, eldest son of Bahá’u’lláh and leader of the Bahá’í Faith after his father’s passing, visited the United States and Canada. Abdu’l-Bahá arrived in New York City on April 11, 1912, and travelled to cities around the country, including Chicago, Cleveland, Boston, Minneapolis, and Los Angeles. In his talks nationwide, Abdu’l-Bahá challenged Americans to move beyond tolerance, embrace diversity completely, and demolish racial barriers in all areas of life. By 1956, there were roughly seven thousand members of the Bahá’í Faith in the United States.
In the late 1950s and early sixties, the Bahá’í Faith made its way to Waco, Texas. Several Bahá’ís from the Dallas area travelled to Waco in an effort to expand the faith in Central Texas. Among those in this group were Harry Craig, Howard Meking, Paul Pethed, and Jack McCants. McCants, a native of Palestine in East Texas and former Methodist ministered, joined the Bahá’í Faith in 1959 and went on to become a prominent member of the faith. He was elected to the National Spiritual Assembly, the nine-member governing body of the Bahá’í Faith in the United States, in 1996.
After the Bahá’í Faith was established in Waco, the community ebbed and flowed through the sixties, seventies, and eighties, with members numbering at high points in the upper teens. Waco Bahá’ís gathered in homes for devotions, monthly feasts prescribed on the Bahá’í calendar, and Bahá’í holy days—including Naw-Rúz, the Bahá’í New Year, and the birth of Bahá’u’lláh. Early Waco Bahá’ís included Mary Mosely, Willie Jeans Edwards (who was introduced to the Bahá’í Faith by Amos Gibson, one of the members of the First Universal House of Justice), Louise and Gilbert Rocker, and Bill Irving.
In the 1990s, the Bahá’í Faith saw considerable growth and visibility in Waco. Several Bahá’í families moved to the Waco area, including Fuad and Brenda Khozein and Tim and Jo Welter. As an outgrowth of their annual celebration of Race Unity Day, Waco Bahá’ís began sponsoring Race Unity Forums to establish a dialogue on race relations in Waco. The first of these events was held on June 14, 1992. The Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Waco, First Baptist Church NBC, El Calvario Presbyterian Church, and Seventh & James Baptist Church, all of Waco, served as sponsors. This was one of the first events centered on race relations held in Waco, which brought together several community members, including representatives from the Waco Police Department, Western Heights Baptist Church, First Baptist Church NBC, and El Calvario Presbyterian Church. Waco area Bahá’ís would go on to sponsor several more Race Unity Forums throughout the 1990s, along with workshops aimed at tackling racism and a continuing education class on racism at McLennan Community College in 1994. These early efforts sparked community interest and further dialogues on race relations, which would later lead to the formation of the Waco Community Race Relations Coalition in 2001. Today, several Bahá’í members serve on the board and are involved with coalition activities.
The growth of the Waco-area Bahá’í community (up to thirty members by the mid-1990s) and an interest in becoming more visible in Waco led to the development of the Waco Bahá’í Center. After a location was chosen and extensive renovations, the building was rented and later purchased in the late 1990s. The Waco Bahá’í Center, located at 2500 Bosque Boulevard in Waco, was formally dedicated on October 29, 1995, becoming a location for Bahá’í and community events.
In the 2000s, The Greater Waco Interfaith Conference (formally known as the Conference of Christian and Jews) invited area Bahá’ís to participate, alongside individuals representing Islam, Hinduism, and Jainism living in Waco. Through the years, Bahá’ís have held positions on the board, including as acting president. The purpose of the Greater Waco Interfaith Conference is to promote harmony, understanding, cooperation, and respect among the variety of faith tradition and the surrounding areas.
As of 2017, about twenty Bahá’ís worship in Waco and in China Spring, where the McLennan County Bahá’ís were established in the 2000s. They continue to be involved in community organizations and activities, and regularly host events to raise awareness about the Bahá’í Faith.
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]]>Although born of humble beginnings, Greater Ebenezer Baptist Church has been lifting Wacoans up in worship for over a century.
The church now known as Greater Ebenezer Baptist began as Oak Street Baptist Church in East Waco in 1915, when Rev. J. S. A. Trowser organized a church of eleven members at a little house at 117 Oak Street, right next to an Elm Street cotton gin where several members worked. The Oak Street Baptist Church grew and by 1918, was able to pay Trowser a salary of $17.50 a week.
In 1924, the church was renamed Ebenezer Baptist Church as it moved to Dutton Street and began growing one lot at a time as the congregation could afford. Around 1940, Trowser passed the pulpit to the Rev. J. E. Deckard, who served seven years. Since then, seven other pastors have led the church.
Before the construction of I-35, Dutton Avenue served as the main drag and the mostly unpaved streets around it were packed with small houses and corner stores. Families would walk to church from the South Waco neighborhood, joining others who had walked from farther reaches of Waco or even country towns such as Downsville. Dressed in their Sunday best, they would settle in for an entire day of singing, preaching, and fellowship.
Many congregants still remember every corner of that old wood-frame church building, which was built in 1924, substantially renovated in 1940, and wrapped in brick in 1969. Notable for its red windows—bought at a time when stained glass was too expensive for a working-class congregation—it was razed to make way for the new million-dollar building, complete with stained glass.
The church’s current pastor, Rev. Kerry Burkley, a Truett Seminary graduate who also is program director of the Waco Children’s Advocacy Center, is the son of a Central Texas minister. He remembers coming to Greater Ebenezer when his father was a guest preacher there and sensing the history and community of the church. He said the church maintains a strong sense of community despite the decline of the adjacent neighborhood.
Congregants saw a superhighway built at their doorstep in the 1960s, and later the orange stakes on the front lawn marking I-35’s expansion area. Much of the land around the church increasingly became owned by developers. In recent years, the church has turned away inquiries from real estate buyers interested in new construction on the corner.
In the summer of 2015, the church celebrated its centennial with a multi-day revival. Despite the barrage of change around the church, the values of Greater Ebenezer remain largely similar to those of the original institution founded by hard-working East Wacoans over a century ago. The church retains a strong commitment to serving as a center of worship and community, being a “stone of help for people.”
]]>Tidwell Bible Building stands as a physical memorial not only to the formation of Baylor’s modern Department of Religion, but also as a symbol of the university’s dedication to Christian ideals.
Prior to 1910, Baylor’s Bible Department offered primarily professional training for ministers. Yet the entire department moved to Fort Worth after becoming a theological seminary officially independent of the university in 1908. As the new head of the Baylor religion department, Josiah Blake Tidwell shifted the focus of the department toward the education of undergraduates. Though it reflected Tidwell’s highly traditional and conservative values, he viewed the department as a primarily academic department, and his work served as the origin for the current religion department.
Strongly influenced by his work, 125 of Tidwell’s students met at the Baptist General Convention of Texas at Mineral Wells in 1936 to discuss plans to erect a building on the Baylor campus bearing his name. Although the students launched a fundraising campaign for the construction of a simple building that same year, it took nearly eighteen years for the realization of their vision.
As enrollment increased at Baylor University and classroom space dwindled, the Tidwell Bible Building Committee formed in the mid-1940s when the university realized the practical need for a new building for the religion department. The committee employed different marketing strategies in order to obtain enough money to complete the project. For instance, December 2, 1945 was declared Tidwell Bible Building Day, and Baptist churches throughout the state took up collections to fund the construction. But it was a pamphlet produced in the late-1940s and early-1950s bearing Guy A. Carlander’s suggested design for a grandiose building which ultimately secured enough pledges for the groundbreaking ceremony to take place in 1949.
Baylor president W. R. White spoke at the dedication held in Tidwell Bible Building’s Miller Memorial Chapel on October 22, 1954. Designed by the architectural firm Birch D. Easterwood and Son to bear enough symbolism to indicate its use for religious purposes without resembling a church structure, the seven-floor building cost around $600,000 to construct.
Sixty-eight limestone panels depicting biblical scenes make up one of the most distinctive features of the building. Planned by Baylor religion professors and designed and carved by Ira Correll and son, the ornate panels encircle the building twice bearing images of stories from both the Old and New Testament.
In addition to housing enough classroom space for up to 800 students, the new building also held space for the Tidwell Bible Library, office space for faculty, and Miller Memorial Chapel. Since its dedication in 1953, the structure has housed classes for the religion, history, philosophy, sociology, nursing, modern foreign language, and sacred music departments.
In 2020, Tidwell underwent extensive renovations intended to maximize space, improve infrastructure, and increase accessibility while preserving the defining features of the building. One major change to the building was the conversion of Miller Memorial Chapel to classroom and office space, as the proliferation of chapels on campus meant it was no longer the primary chapel of the university, and faculty office space in Tidwell was limited in the past.
Today, Tidwell Bible Building remains home to the religion, sociology, and history departments, and towers over the campus as a physical reminder of the university’s commitment to Christian ideals and education.
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