History - Organization of the Black
Work / Beginning of the Work in the Area

There was no continuous method of organization. For certain years (1911, 1912, 1921, 1922) the Yearbook lists a Southwestern Union Mission for colored, organized 1910.

The Seventh-day faith was preached to Blacks in the territory of the present Southwest Region Conference at least as early as 1876, in the same year in which the Rust brothers. Seventh-day Adventist laymen, came into Texas and gathered the first group of White converts in the Dallas area. D.M. Canright, visiting Texas in May 1876, reported that one of the young members, Eddie Capman, was conducting a night at school three times a week for Blacks, teaching old men and little children to read and write. He also described a preaching service for Whites where many Black people, according to the local custom, sat outside and listened.

Later that same year, A.B. Rust reported going with Purson Medlin, who had attended Capman's night school to preach in several neighboring counties. In a community of 700 at Mansfield, Texas, he preached in their log church, which had a large bower erected in front of it where White visitors sat outside. The next spring, Joseph Clark and his wife from Ohio, taught at school at Grand Prairie, near A.B. Rust's home, in a building that had been erected by the Blacks, with the aid of contributions from the local White citizens.