For decades, the foundation of the old St. James African Methodist Episcopal Church lay buried beneath asphalt, gravel and concrete. Most people had no idea that the remains of the building — the church home of former enslaved people — ever existed on the banks of San Pedro Creek.
The church — San Antonio’s first African Methodist Episcopal congregation — was born after the announcement that the Emancipation Proclamation had ended slavery and 100 former enslaved people and free African Americans formed the house of worship.
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