Organization – Our Beginning

The Seventh-day faith was preached to Blacks in the territory of the present-day Southwest Region Conference as early as 1876, the same year in which the Rust brothers, Seventh-day Adventist laymen, came to 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.

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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 in Mansfield, Texas, he preached in their log church. The next spring, Ohio native Joseph Clark and his wife taught at a school in Grand Prairie, near A.B. Rust’s home, in a building that had been erected by Black workers, with the aid of contributions from the local White citizens. Continue Reading…

See the Chronological History here
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