Salem United Methodist Church

Six months after news of emancipation reached Texas in 1865, the Louisiana-Texas-Mississippi Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church for African Americans, known as the Mississippi Conference, was organized on Christmas Day. In 1868, its mission at Orange began hosting worship services under Baptist minister Arthur Robinson, who was succeeded the following year by Rev. Joseph Hardin, a circuit rider from Galveston. The mission formally adopted the name Salem Methodist Episcopal Church when it became a full church in 1873, and trustees acquired property and built a small frame building in 1877. For several years beginning in 1883, students from the African American school at Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church attended classes in the Salem church building. As the congregation grew, trustees acquired additional land, and by 1923 brick had been added to a second frame building. Salem Methodist Episcopal Church hosted the sixteenth session of the Texas annual conference in 1925. The church grew steadily through the 20th century and remained active in the daily lives of Orange's African American citizens; during the World War II population increase, elementary school classes were held in its building. Its members included community and state leaders such as political and civil activists, ministers, educators, a vice president of the Texas National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and the first black and female mayor of Orange. Salem United Methodist Church continues the traditions of its founders through service and worship.

Orange, Texas · United States