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David Chapel s Pastor Joseph C. Parker Jr. (Photo by John Anderson)
David Chapel Missionary Baptist Church was born, phoenixlike, out of the darkness of Austin s racial history. The congregation originated in 1924, when members of a community then south of Austin, concerned about boys playing marbles on Sundays, established a church in a former blacksmith shop. They ve moved two times since: once in 1926 to the corner of 14th and Chestnut streets in East Austin, and again, as the church grew, to its current site at MLK and Chestnut in 1958.
With the second move, the church wanted to build a new sanctuary to accommodate its growing congregation, but white-owned banks refused to lend the money. Instead, David Chapel solicited funding from the St. John Regular Baptist Associa­tion (a coalition of churches in East Austin, still in existence) and hired John S. Chase – the first Black graduate of the UT-Austin School of Architecture – to design the sanctua ....

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