Woolfolk Digital Preservation Lab (WDPL)

A church
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Help Us Find the Missing Pieces

I need help preserving history!

 

The Woolfolk Digital Preservation Lab and Bethlehem United Methodist Church are now carrying this work into a new generation.

But no laboratory can preserve what it never receives.

 

If you are a PVAMU alumnus, former employee, Waller County resident, Bethlehem member or descendant,

 

local church member,

 

or keeper of a family collection,

 

PLEASE look again at the boxes in your closet…

 

the photographs in your albums…

 

the programs inside old Bibles…

 

the VHS tapes, letters…

 

funeral programs, scrapbooks…

 

ANY documents that someone once decided were worth saving!

 

They may contain the missing name.

 

 

 

The missing photograph.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The missing chapter!

 

 

 

 

In 1978, Bethlehem’s own Homecoming Committee asked people with records and documents to share them so the church could “fill in all the missing periods.”

 

Nearly fifty years later, the invitation remains open.

 

Help the Woolfolk Digital Preservation Lab prevent the erasure of African American history. Help us preserve the evidence that says: we were here, we built this, we served, we remembered—and we left something for those who came next.

 

BUMC wide
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From Brush Arbors to Digital Archives

From Brush Arbors to Digital Archives

 

What the Bethlehem United Methodist Church Homecoming Programs Reveal About the Lived Experience of African Americans in Waller County, Texas
 
By T. DeWayne Moore, Zha’Mauri Howard & Evelyn Todd
Zha'Mauri in front of BUMC
WDPL student archivist Zha’Mauri Howard standing in front of BUMC in the summer of 2026 [Photograph © T. DeWayne Moore 2026]
Loretta Sanchez and her mother, Geneva Moore, during the initial assessment of the BUMC Collection in summer 2026 [Photograph © T. DeWayne Moore 2026]

Preventing the Erasure of

Black History

For generations, the Bethlehem United Methodist Church (BUMC) preserved its own history—one homecoming program, photograph, financial report, memorial, and handwritten note at a time. Now, BUMC and the Woolfolk Digital Preservation Lab (WDPL) are making sure not only that BUMC’s rich history survives, but that it is available to scholars and students across the nation…

A concrete sidewalk extends toward a concrete road
This concrete sidewalk once extended from the parsonage that sat beside BUMC [Photograph © T. DeWayne Moore 2026]

Our

Shared Mission

Geneva Moore and Albert Garfield
Longtime BUMC member Geneva Moore and BUMC acolyte Albert Garfield at BUMC in summer 2026 [Photograph © T. DeWayne Moore 2026]

BUMC and WDPL share similar philosophies and missions regarding historic preservation. History does not disappear all at once. Sometimes it vanishes one funeral program at a time. One photograph sits in an archive without a name or date written on the back. One church booklet gets discarded during a move. One church elder ascends to that upper room before anyone records what she remembers.

 

That is why this collaboration between Bethlehem United Methodist Church (BUMC) in Hempstead and Prairie View A&M University’s Woolfolk Digital Preservation Lab (WDPL) matters.

 

The documents being preserved are not merely church souvenirs. Read across nearly half a century, Bethlehem’s homecoming programs become an extraordinary community archive. They record Black religious life, education, mutual aid, women’s leadership, youth programs, institutional finances, family networks, encounters with racial change, and a surprisingly deep relationship between Bethlehem and Prairie View A&M University.

 

They also reveal something more fundamental:

 

Bethlehem was preserving Black history long before anyone called the work “digital preservation.”

 

This digital exhibition contains some of the most remarkable stories from the homecoming programs digitized by WDPL students so far.

1967 — A Black Church Confronts a Nation in Crisis

Bethlehem’s 1967 program appeared during one of the most turbulent moments in twentieth-century American history. Its trustees did not pretend the church existed outside that world.

They wrote about sweeping changes affecting “our schools, churches and communities,” alongside urban riots and a war that was “virtually tearing our homes to pieces.” Their response was not retreat. Homecoming was presented as an opportunity to rededicate the congregation to service—to their “fellowman, Community, Church and Nation.”

That language makes the program more than a record of worship. It captures how a Black congregation in rural Texas interpreted the upheavals of the late 1960s in real time.

Homecoming, in other words, was never only about looking backward. It was also a place to decide what the church should do next.

1969 — “There Is Much to Be Done as a Church and as a Race”

By 1969, Bethlehem was navigating change both within Methodism and beyond it. The program carried the new United Methodist cross-and-flame emblem and explained its meaning as a symbol of “sacrifices, witness, and service.”

But the program’s trustees went further. In assessing contemporary social change, they declared that there was “much to be done as a church and as a race,” warning that opportunities could disappear if Black communities lacked people prepared to claim them.

That sentence places education, race advancement, leadership, and Christian responsibility in the same conversation.

The pastor’s message likewise urged members to remember people suffering in “war-torn areas, storm sections, and flood areas” and to send aid.

Bethlehem was local—but its moral imagination was not.

1970 — The Church as a Laboratory for Community Life

The 1970 program offers a fascinating window into how Bethlehem understood the relationship between family life and social responsibility.

Pastor Ezekiel Taylor called the Christian home a “Christian laboratory.” His point was that gratitude, cooperation, responsibility, sharing, stewardship, reverence, and love were first practiced at home—and then carried into the wider community.

The program also celebrated something remarkably modern: cooperation between generations. Senior and youth choirs were praised for demonstrating that “The Generation Gap” could be bridged.

This is a recurring theme in the collection. Bethlehem survived because elders did not simply guard an institution. They continually created places for younger people to inherit it.

1973 — Don’t Worship the Past So Much That You Miss the Present

One of the collection’s most thought-provoking essays appeared in 1973.

“The Glamour of Yesterday” warned readers against assuming that all great leaders belonged to previous generations. Its examples included Washington, Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, Martin Luther King Jr., John F. Kennedy, and Robert Kennedy—figures whose significance, the writer argued, was often contested while they were alive.

“It is easier and more comfortable to build tombs of dead prophets than to recognize…present greatness.”

For a historical exhibition, that is an extraordinary warning.

Memory should inspire action—not become an excuse for avoiding it.

1975 — A Church Building, a Community Investment

By the middle of the 1970s, Bethlehem was making substantial investments in its physical and educational infrastructure.

A historical account records an extensive renovation planned by Houston architect John Chase. The project cost $28,270 and included sanctuary modernization, new flooring, heating and cooling, lighting, improvements to the pastor’s study, a new entrance and usher’s booth, and additional furnishings and repairs.

But Bethlehem was building people as seriously as it was building facilities. Its church school was fundraising for audiovisual equipment, books, magazines, recorded tapes, classroom furniture, and educational materials for classes ranging from kindergarten through adulthood.

And Prairie View was already part of this ecosystem. The program carried material for Prairie View A&M University’s Upward Bound Project, then recruiting eleventh- and twelfth-grade students.

The church and university were not separate worlds. They belonged to the same Black educational landscape.

1976/77 — Tutoring Was Ministry

One of the most distinctive programs in the collection is the working copy of the 1977 program, which contains handwritten notes throughout. It appears to be a 1976 booklet reused and extensively annotated for the 1977 Homecoming service — demonstrating why careful processing matters.

More importantly, the document records young people turning religious commitment into educational work.

Bethlehem’s Methodist Youth Fellowship operated a weekly Tutoring-Enrichment Program for students in grades 1–12, concentrating on reading and mathematics.

The same section imagined Christian responsibility globally, calling upon people to understand an “international, multi-racial, transcultural community.”

At Bethlehem, ministry could mean preaching on Sunday—but it could also mean helping a child with fractions on Tuesday evening.

1978 — Bethlehem Was Already Asking People to Build Its Archive

Perhaps no page speaks more directly to the work of the WDPL than the church’s 1978 historical sketch.

After recounting Bethlehem’s development, its homecoming committee inserted a plea:

“Those of you with records and documents…please share them with us.”

Why?

Because they wanted to “fill in all the missing periods.”

That is archival work.

The same program lists dozens of people who had served Bethlehem for twenty-five or even fifty years or more. Every one of those names represents a possible family archive—a Bible, photograph album, letter, obituary, oral history, or set of papers that might fill another missing piece.

The WDPL is continuing a preservation project that Bethlehem’s own members explicitly called for nearly fifty years ago.

1979 — The Homecoming Program Declares Itself an Archive

The 1979 booklet is astonishingly self-aware.

Its foreword says that the book was prepared to “capture the Spiritual growth” of Bethlehem over eleven decades and to commemorate the people and events responsible for its growth and unity.

That makes the program an intentional historical document—not simply an event handout.

And what a story it preserves.

By the late 1970s, Bethlehem reported a weekday senior-citizens program providing recreation and hot meals; a year-round Tutorial Enrichment Program supported by the United Methodist Commission on Religion and Race; a Cub Scout pack open to Hempstead boys; a nursing-home ministry; ecumenical worship; and educational initiatives in reading and mathematics.

The program even records the church’s financial machinery: as of September 14, 1979, homecoming-related contributions totaled $5,190.60.

Preserving Black history also means preserving how Black institutions funded their work.

1980 — Black History, Tutoring, and Prairie View Were Already Connected

The 1980 program could almost serve as an early blueprint for the WDPL’s present-day mission.

Bethlehem’s youth reported presenting a Black History Program and Black History Display while continuing a Tuesday tutorial program supported by a $500 Youth Service Fund grant.

The program also honored Samuel Montgomery, whose leadership crossed institutional boundaries. He was associated with Bethlehem’s ministries and trustees, served as president of the Prairie View Wesley Foundation Board of Directors, and worked on the college campus, where the program credited him with guiding young people.

This is one of the clearest reminders in the collection that the histories of Bethlehem, Hempstead, Prairie View, and PVAMU overlap constantly.

They cannot be adequately interpreted in isolation.

1981 — Meet Dora Ellington, a Human Bridge to the Nineteenth Century

The 1981 homecoming was dedicated to Dora Ellington, then eighty-seven years old.

Her significance was not merely longevity. The program stated that her mother and grandmother had also belonged to Bethlehem, placing her family roots in the congregation back into the nineteenth century. Ellington herself had sung in the senior choir for more than fifty years, participated in the old prayer-meeting band, served with the United Methodist Women and Communion Stewards, and was described as Bethlehem’s oldest continuously serving member.

A single biography suddenly connects several generations.

That is precisely why names matter in archives.

A name can become the thread that links church records to census schedules, land records, university records, photographs, family collections, and oral histories.

1982 — Homecoming Had Its Own Origin Story

Two surviving 1982 documents provide complementary views of the same celebration: the souvenir program and its organizational materials.

The program records an important piece of institutional memory: Bethlehem traced the beginning of its Homecoming Services to 1952 and the “spiritual vision” of Mrs. Ollie Mayes Singleton. The 1982 theme was “Strengthening Our Prayer Life Through Worship.”

The companion material shows how much organization sat behind the celebration. Women chaired worship, publication, food, youth, and other areas; fundraising was structured across generations, with suggested contributions assigned separately to adults, young adults, youth, and children.

Homecoming was therefore not a spontaneous reunion.

It was an annual act of institution-building, fundraising, collective labor, and memory-making.

1983 — Bethlehem Records the End of a Segregated Methodist Structure

The 1983 program places Bethlehem’s denominational history within the history of race.

Its historical account explains that Bethlehem emerged from the all-Black Gulf Coast Conference and records that the conference was dissolved in 1968 as the congregation became part of the integrated Texas Conference.

That transition gives the church archive significance far beyond one congregation. It offers evidence for studying how Black Methodist institutions experienced denominational desegregation.

The church school’s language that year was equally striking. Christian education, it said, should teach people to “rejoice,” “cry,” and “struggle with them for justice and liberation and healing.”

That is not passive Christianity. It is a theology of solidarity.

1992 — “Come As You Are” Meant Rejecting Status

The 1992 theme was “Come As You Are—Proof That God Provides.”

Pastor Francis E. W. Guidry contrasted church homecoming with reunions where people might feel pressure to “come to impress.” Bethlehem, he argued, should instead be a place where people could gather without anxiety about possessions or social standing.

Meanwhile, the tutorial ministry was serving approximately thirty-five children in reading, mathematics, homework assistance, and creative writing. Its cultural outing took children and parents to see Ain’t No Teacher Gonna Hit My Child at Prairie View A&M University.

That is what makes these documents so useful: theology, education, childhood, culture, and PVAMU appear on the same pages.

1994 — “Not Simply in the Community. It Must Be of the Community.”

Bethlehem celebrated its 125th anniversary by asking a remarkably forward-looking question: what kind of church should enter the twenty-first century?

The answer was memorable:

“Bethlehem cannot afford to be a church which is simply in the community. It must be of the community.”

The congregation was already acting on that philosophy.

Its tutorial program had operated for seventeen years, using volunteer labor to teach reading, mathematics, creative writing, and self-esteem. That year, PVAMU professor Dr. Joan Clark led a parenting workshop for participating families.

The program also preserved Bethlehem’s Reconstruction-era origin story: worship in brush arbors, barns, and homes; the 1871 conveyance of property for a church; and the names of Black men associated with that acquisition.

The 1994 booklet effectively looks backward and forward at once.

2004 — A PVAMU Historian Had Already Been Preserving Bethlehem’s Story

The connection becomes explicit in 2004.

The homecoming program reprinted a substantial church history titled “Bethlehem — The Years — The Experiences.” Its compiler was identified as Dr. Purvis Carter, a Bethlehem member and Professor of History at Prairie View A&M University.

That fact gives the present Bethlehem–WDPL collaboration a deeper history.

A PVAMU historian was already helping Bethlehem document its past decades before the WDPL began digitizing the congregation’s records.

Meanwhile, Bethlehem’s tutorial ministry continued working with children from surrounding communities, emphasizing academic skills, belonging, and self-worth.

The archive reveals an enduring partnership between scholarship and service.

2013 — The Archive Becomes a Record of Who Was Lost

The following year, Bethlehem recorded the deaths of members between September 2012 and September 2013. Among the names was Dr. Purvis Carter, the PVAMU historian whose church history had appeared in earlier homecoming programs.

That single entry demonstrates one of the quiet powers of homecoming programs.

They are also memorial books.

People who might receive only a line in another historical source are named as musicians, trustees, teachers, ushers, cooks, youth sponsors, financial captains, historians, mothers, fathers, and servants of the community.

And Bethlehem’s 2013 vision remained firmly outward-facing. The congregation described Christian service as healing the sick, feeding the hungry, caring for the stranger, freeing the oppressed, and developing more just social structures.

After 144 years, remembering the past still meant accepting responsibility for the present.

A table with piles of homecoming programs on top of it.
In summer 2026, the WDPL met with members of BUMC to take inventory of the manuscript collection in the back rooms of the church. This table demonstrates how we organized the documents–with one table dedicated to homecoming programs and others devoted to meeting minutes, financial ledgers, and other records.

What These Programs Really Preserve

 

Taken one at a time, these documents can look modest: staples, fading paper, advertisements, committee lists, worship orders, photographs, memorial pages, and financial reports.

Taken together, they tell a much larger story.

They reveal a Black institution founded in the aftermath of slavery that educated children, fed elders, cared for the sick, trained young leaders, raised money, repaired buildings, confronted racial change, built relationships across denominations, maintained ties to Prairie View, employed university expertise, recorded its dead, celebrated its elders, and repeatedly asked what responsibility one generation owed the next.

And again and again, Bethlehem’s members wrote the names down.

That may be their most important gift to us.

The Next Missing Piece May Be in Your House

 

The Woolfolk Digital Preservation Lab and Bethlehem United Methodist Church are now carrying this work into a new generation.

But no laboratory can preserve what it never receives.

If you are a PVAMU alumnus, former employee, Waller County resident, Bethlehem member or descendant, local church member, or keeper of a family collection, look again at the boxes in your closet, the photographs in your albums, the programs inside old Bibles, the VHS tapes, newsletters, letters, funeral programs, scrapbooks, and documents that someone once decided were worth saving.

They may contain the missing name.

The missing photograph.

The missing chapter.

In 1978, Bethlehem’s own Homecoming Committee asked people with records and documents to share them so the church could “fill in all the missing periods.”

Nearly fifty years later, the invitation remains open.

Help the Woolfolk Digital Preservation Lab prevent the erasure of African American history. Help us preserve the evidence that says: we were here, we built this, we served, we remembered—and we left something for those who came next.

The cover of the 1967 BUMC homecoming program
The cover of the 1969 BUMC homecoming program
The cover of the 1967 BUMC homecoming program.
The cover of the 1973 BUMC homecoming program
The cover of the 1975 BUMC homecoming program
The cover of the 1976/77 BUMC homecoming program.
The cover of the 1978 BUMC homecoming program.
The cover of the 1979 BUMC homecoming program
The cover of the 1980 BUMC homecoming program
The cover of the 1981 BUMC homecoming program.
The cover of the 1982 BUMC homecoming program
The cover of the 1983 BUMC homecoming program
The cover of the 1994 BUMC homecoming program
Take this short survey and share a piece of history!

Help Us Find the Missing Pieces!

If you are a PVAMU alumnus, former employee, Waller County resident, Bethlehem member or descendant, local church member, or keeper of a family collection, please take this short survey and find out how you can help us prevent the erasure of African American history!

Take this short survey and share a piece of history!

Bethlehem United Methodist Church
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Opening the Archives

Opening the Archives: Bethlehem United Methodist Church Preserves More Than a Century of Community Memory

By Zha’Mauri Howard and T. DeWayne Moore
Wooden Cabinet
This old file cabinet contained the oldest church records in the collection dating from the 1910s [Photograph © T. DeWayne Moore 2026]

This week marked another important milestone in the preservation of African American history in Waller County.

Alongside my graduate student, Zha’Mauri Howard, and longtime church member Geneva Moore, we spent the day working inside Bethlehem United Methodist Church in Hempstead, Texas, organizing and assessing the church’s remarkable archival collection. We were also joined by Geneva’s daughter, Loretta Sanchez, making this a truly multigenerational day of historical discovery.

What we encountered exceeded our expectations.

For generations, Bethlehem United Methodist Church has carefully safeguarded its own history. Hidden inside cabinets, filing drawers, closets, and storage spaces were decades of church records waiting to tell their stories.

Among the materials we examined were:
  • historic photographs
  • anniversary and Homecoming programs
  • administrative records
  • membership materials
  • correspondence
  • church publications
  • handwritten notes
  • bound record books
  • and numerous unidentified historical documents dating across much of the twentieth century.
Every folder opened revealed another piece of the congregation’s remarkable history.
Geneva Moore and her daughter
Geneva Moore and Loretta Sanchez digging through old file cabinets that contained church records from the 1960s and 1970s [Photograph © T. DeWayne Moore 2026]
Loretta Sanchez
Loretta Sanchez digging through an old file cabinet that contained church records from the 1910s and 1920s [Photograph © T. DeWayne Moore 2026]

One of the most rewarding moments came as Geneva Moore and longtime church members carefully examined photographs and documents together. Their conversations transformed unidentified faces into named individuals, anonymous events into remembered occasions, and ordinary papers into living history. Archival work is never simply about preserving documents—it is about preserving memory.

The collection also contains records that will help document Bethlehem’s evolution from the nineteenth century through the Civil Rights era and into the present. These materials will significantly strengthen the church’s ongoing historic preservation efforts and provide future researchers with an extraordinary resource for understanding African American religious life in Waller County.

Geneva Moore and Albert Garfield
Loretta Sanchez and Albert Garfield
Three women and two men
(L to R) Zha’Mauri Howard, Geneva Moore, Albert Garfield, Loretta Sanchez, and Dr. DeWayne Moore [Photograph © T. DeWayne Moore 2026]

Our graduate student Zha’mauri Howard joined us throughout the visit, helping document the collection and learning firsthand how community archives are preserved through collaboration with descendant communities. Experiences like these demonstrate why hands-on public history training is so valuable. Students are not simply learning archival theory—they are participating in the preservation of history that matters deeply to living communities.

As Director of the Woolfolk Digital Preservation Lab at Prairie View A&M University, I am continually reminded that the most important archives are often still in the hands of the communities that created them. Rather than waiting for these records to arrive in a university repository, we can partner with churches, families, and local organizations to help preserve them where they remain most meaningful.

1976 Homecoming Program Cover
1976 Homecoming Program Cover
1986 Homecoming Program Cover
1986 Homecoming Program Cover
 
 
The photographs from this visit capture more than archival work. They document trust, collaboration, and shared stewardship. They show community members identifying photographs, examining decades-old records, exploring hidden storage cabinets filled with historical materials, and celebrating discoveries together.

 

 

This work represents the beginning—not the end—of Bethlehem’s archival preservation project. Over the coming months, the Woolfolk Digital Preservation Lab will continue working with the congregation to organize, preserve, digitize, and describe these materials while ensuring that the history of one of Hempstead’s most important African American institutions remains accessible for future generations.

 

 

History survives because people choose to preserve it.

 

 

At Bethlehem United Methodist Church, that work is well underway.
This handwritten financial ledger captures a meticulous snapshot of community contributions gathered on a single day in July 1920.
This handwritten financial ledger captures a meticulous snapshot of community contributions gathered on a single day in July 1920.
Meeting Log
This meeting log dated January 10, 1932 records the names of individuals who came to BUMC

This project reflects the mission of the Woolfolk Digital Preservation Lab: partnering with communities to preserve African American history through archival stewardship, student training, and public history collaboration.

Program cover for Juneteenth at Wyatt Chapel
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Honoring Emancipation: Juneteenth Celebrations in Waller County

Ten Community and Academic Partners Unite to Celebrate Juneteenth 2026 Across Prairie View and Hempstead

Learn More about Wyatt Chapel Community Cemetery

PRAIRIE VIEW, Texas (June 8, 2026) — Ten academic, cultural, religious, civic, and community organizations will come together June 16–20 to present one of the largest collaborative Juneteenth commemorations in Waller County history. Through exhibitions, public programs, community celebrations, historic preservation initiatives, and scholarly presentations, the partnership will honor the enduring legacy of emancipation while highlighting the people, institutions, and historic places that continue to shape African American life in Texas.

The 2026 Juneteenth observance is a collaborative effort involving the Texas Institute for the Preservation of History and Culture (TIPHC), Prairie View A&M University’s Division of Social Sciences, the Woolfolk Digital Preservation Lab, the East Texas Historical Association, the Waller County Historical Society, the City of Prairie View African American Heritage Commission, the Texas Chapter of the Association of Gravestone Studies, Greater St. Peter’s Baptist Church, Bethlehem United Methodist Church, and Waller County Precinct 3. Together, these organizations represent a shared commitment to public history, community memory, historic preservation, education, and civic engagement.

 

On June 16, 2026, from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., the Texas Institute for the Preservation of History and Culture (TIPHC) will launch its Pre-Juneteenth Celebration with a public Story Slam and exhibit reception inside PVAMU’s award-winning Nathelyne Archie-Kennedy Building, a striking 105,000-square-foot facility that houses both TIPHC and the School of Architecture. Designed as a dynamic environment for creativity, collaboration, and interdisciplinary learning, the building itself reflects the university’s commitment to innovation, preservation, and public engagement.

The centerpiece of the pre-celebration is The Freedom to Heal: Juneteenth and Texas’ Most Determined Medical Legacies, 1865–1976, a new exhibition curated by TIPHC Director Lauren Kelley. Her interpretive experience challenges visitors to view Juneteenth as more than the end of slavery; rather, it was the beginning of a generations-long struggle to secure the fundamental rights to health, education, opportunity, and human dignity. Drawing upon photographs, archival records, and personal stories, Kelley crafts an experience that is both deeply relatable and profoundly moving, inviting reflection from anyone who has ever hoped to build a better future for themselves and their children.

Kelley’s particular gift as a curator lies in her ability to uncover the human stories that connect freedom, resilience, and community transformation. She introduces visitors to remarkable physicians, nurses, educators, hospital leaders, and grassroots advocates who refused to accept the limitations imposed by segregation and systemic exclusion. Yet her greatest achievement is revealing the creativity, determination, and collective effort required to build institutions, expand access to care, and train future generations. Through these stories, Kelley reminds us that the promise of Juneteenth has always depended upon ordinary people doing extraordinary things. Their legacy challenges us to continue the work of creating a healthier, more equitable, and more hopeful future for Texas.

 

The Freedom to Heal helps us understand why Juneteenth remains not only a commemoration of freedom gained but also a celebration of the generations of African Americans who transformed that freedom into lasting institutions, opportunities, and progress. It’s a fitting prelude to the community celebrations that begin on the morning of June 19, when the Greater St. Peter’s Baptist Church will host its 26th Annual Juneteenth Parade and Celebration in Hempstead, Texas. With family-friendly festivities and guest speaker Waller County Commissioner Kendric Jones, the theme “Pain to Progress” (2 Chronicles 7:14) reminds us that Juneteenth is more than a celebration. It is an opportunity to reflect on the sacrifices, struggles, and triumphs that transformed a people once denied freedom into generations of leaders, educators, entrepreneurs, pastors, and public servants.

Beginning with a community parade through Hempstead and culminating in a day of fellowship at Hempstead City Park, the 26th Annual Juneteenth Parade and Celebration honors both the history of emancipation and the enduring spirit of community progress. Led by Greater St. Peter’s Baptist Church and Pastor Rev. Fred Thomas III, the event brings together residents of all ages to celebrate a legacy of resilience, faith, and hope that continues to shape Hempstead and Waller County today.

Later that evening, Constable Smith will host Waller County Precinct 3’s 15th Annual Juneteenth Celebration of Freedom, honoring the legacy of emancipation while celebrating the progress, resilience, and achievements of African Americans. Featuring fellowship, food, music, games, and family-friendly activities at the Waller County Community Center in Prairie View, the celebration is located not far from the usual event site—the historic home of the last PVAMU principal and former PVAMU President Edward Bertram Evans at 102 Dorsey Drive. Constable Smith’s event highlights the importance of preserving institutional history and strengthening the bonds that unite the community today. The Precinct 3 Constable’s Office and the City of Prairie View have come together on this national holiday since 2012 to remind us of opportunities to empower and serve our community. In 2026, the City of Prairie View African American Heritage Commission made a pledge to Constable Smith and the residents of this city: for the 2027 Juneteenth Celebration of Freedom, we will be celebrating the nomination of the historic home of Dr. Evans to the National Register of Historic Places.

It should have been on the list long ago, and we look forward to building on the momentum of the 14 Families historic marker project as well as the forthcoming NRHP nomination for the Bethlehem United Methodist Church, founded in 1869 by formerly enslaved men and women of faith in Hempstead, TX.

Program cover for Juneteenth at Wyatt Chapel

The following day, June 20, is perhaps the most anticipated of the entire Juneteenth week of activities. The Woolfolk Digital Preservation Lab and the PVAMU Division of Social Sciences will host the 10th New Deal Conference in collaboration with the East Texas Historical Association at the Welcome Center on the PVAMU campus. A special part of this year’s conference is the collaborative efforts of the Waller County Historical Society, the City of Prairie View African American Heritage Commission, and the Association of Gravestone Studies to present “Juneteenth at Wyatt Chapel Community Cemetery.”

The day begins with registration, welcoming remarks from East Texas Historical Association Executive Director M. Scott Sosebee and Prairie View A&M University Interim Chair of the Division of Social Sciences Ronald E. Goodwin, and opening comments from New Deal Symposium founder George Cooper. The first session of research papers features presentations examining New Deal-era and twentieth-century history, including convict labor and prison reform during the Great Depression, the Federal Writers’ Project in Texas, and the evolution of jazz.

 

Following the morning scholarly session, participants will travel by shuttle to Wyatt Chapel Community Cemetery for Juneteenth at Wyatt Chapel Community Cemetery, highlighted by remarks from Paul Jackson, Assistant Trail Boss of the Prairie View Trail Ride Association. This is the 4th iteration of the program. Since 2022, Prairie View native Pamela Morgan has worked tirelessly to raise awareness of the historic cemetery that holds forever close the remains of her ancestor, World War II veteran Milo Wilson, whose military headstone is one of the few grave markers in a burial ground containing the remains of over 150 people. She organized the first Juneteenth celebration at the cemetery in 2022, after she reached out to Junior McKay of the Waller County Historical Society to assist in her efforts to better care for the historical burial ground. At the time, the grass and weeds had grown so high that she could not even find the headstones, which sit in a field just north of the historical marker. McKay put Morgan in touch with T. DeWayne Moore, an Assistant Professor of History at PVAMU, who conducts research about heritage tourism, memorialization, and the resounding impact of resource hoarding on African American cemeteries. Dr. Moore wrote a $20,000 grant to the Summerlee Foundation to complete the geophysical study begun by scholars at Rice University in 2008, and he enlisted dozens of his students to conduct archival research and increase awareness and interest in the cemetery.

The 2026 program provides another opportunity to engage directly with one of Prairie View’s most significant historic landscapes and will also serve as a platform to recognize local people who have had an unusually positive impact on Waller County.

 

After returning from the cemetery and sharing a catered barbecue lunch, the second session of the New Deal Conference features presentations exploring housing and homeownership under the New Deal, the impact of anti-German discrimination during World War I, and the relationship between Texas politics, race, and federal policy during the Roosevelt administration. The symposium concludes with closing comments from representatives from the 1) Waller County Historical Society (WCHS), 2) the City of Prairie View African American Heritage Commission, 3) the Texas chapter of the Association of Gravestone Studies(AGS), 4) the Woolfolk Digital Preservation Lab (WDPL), 5) the Greater St. Peter’s Baptist Church, 6) Bethlehem United Methodist Church in Hempstead, 7) Waller County Precinct 3, 8) the Texas Institute for the Preservation of History and Culture (TIPHC), 9) the PVAMU Division of Social Sciences (DSS) and 10) the East Texas Historical Association—bringing together themes of public history, community memory, civil rights, cultural heritage, and the preservation of East Texas history. Through a combination of scholarly research, community engagement, and site-based interpretation, the program connects the history of the New Deal to the broader story of freedom, citizenship, and remembrance commemorated through Juneteenth at Wyatt Chapel Community Cemetery on PVAMU’s campus.

Woolfolk Digital Preservation Lab

The Woolfolk Digital Preservation Lab (WDPL) at Prairie View A&M University advances the preservation, accessibility, and interpretation of African American history through digital preservation, archival processing, scholarly publishing, oral history, and community-engaged public history. As a teaching and research laboratory, WDPL trains students in archival practice, digitization, metadata creation, digital storytelling, and emerging technologies while preserving historically underrepresented voices, communities, and cultural resources.

Through partnerships with community organizations, churches, cemeteries, museums, scholars, and public agencies, WDPL supports the documentation and stewardship of historical collections across Texas and the broader African American diaspora. The lab develops innovative approaches to digital preservation, including large-scale digitization projects, community archives, cemetery documentation, geospatial interpretation, and artificial intelligence-assisted research tools. By combining academic scholarship with public engagement, WDPL promotes the educational, cultural, civic, and social value of preserving historical memory for future generations.

Intro to Dg Storytelling
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Enroll in Intro to Digital Storytelling at PVAMU

Enroll in Intro to Digital Storytelling at PVAMU

ENROLL TODAY IN INTRO TO DIGITAL STORYTELLING

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

PRAIRIE VIEW, Texas — This upcoming semester, the History Program in the Division of Social Sciences at Prairie View A&M University (PVAMU) is calling on students from all disciplines to discover the power of the past through the technology of the future by enrolling in Introduction to Digital Storytelling.

Hosted in the state-of-the-art Woolfolk Digital Preservation Lab (WDPL), this dynamic course offers students a unique opportunity to merge traditional historical research with cutting-edge digital media. “Introduction to Digital Storytelling” moves beyond the standard textbook experience. Students will learn how to transform archival research, oral histories, and cultural narratives into engaging digital formats. Through hands-on instruction, enrolled students will gain practical experience in:

  • Digital Archiving and Curation: Learning the industry standards for preserving historical documents and photographs.

  • Multimedia Production: Creating podcasts, short documentary videos, and interactive digital exhibits.

  • Narrative Design: Developing the vital skill of crafting compelling, primary and secondary source-based stories for modern, digital-first audiences.

While the course is rooted in the History Program, the skills gained are highly transferable. Whether a student is majoring in history, communications, education, or computer science, this class builds a highly sought-after resume toolkit. Students will leave the course with a professional portfolio piece that demonstrates their ability to synthesize complex information, use modern software, and communicate effectively to diverse audiences.

ENROLL IN INTRO TO DIGITAL STORYTELLING

Intro to Dg Storytelling

 

The Woolfolk Digital Preservation Lab provides the perfect backdrop for this exploration. Operating on the core principle that student labor is deeply pedagogical and generative, rather than extractive, the lab ensures that every project contributes directly to a student’s academic and professional growth. Here, students are treated as active creators and scholars, gaining access to professional-grade equipment and software in a collaborative, innovative environment right on “The Hill.”

Registration Information:

Enrollment for “Introduction to Digital Storytelling” is now open for the upcoming semester. Students can register through the PVAMU Panthertracks portal. Seats in the Woolfolk Digital Preservation Lab are limited to ensure personalized instruction, so early registration is highly encouraged.

For more information about the course, prerequisites, or the Woolfolk Digital Preservation Lab, students are encouraged to reach out using the contact information below.

Our mission at the WDPL is to eliminate historical silences through digital storytelling and prevent the erasure of institutional history through historic preservation at PVAMU.

About the Woolfolk Digital Preservation Lab (WDPL): 

The WDPL has recently accepted the responsibility of formatting and curating The Griot, an academic journal of peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary scholarship founded by the Southern Conference on African American Studies, Inc. (SCAASI) in 1983. In 2026, WDPL student archivists Ma’Nya Velasquez and Zha’Mauri Howard started to process and digitize The Griot Collection, an important body of Black intellectual work from Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), which has never before been shared with the public. African American scholarship from HBCUs has historically faced “archival silence” due to underfunding, segregation, and limited distribution, and WDPL aims to protect and amplify such scholarship to promote future research and global access.

About the Prairie View A&M University History Program:

The History Program, housed within the Division of Social Sciences at PVAMU, is dedicated to fostering a deep understanding of the global past, with a special emphasis on the African American experience and the history of the African Diaspora. Through innovative teaching and rigorous research, the program prepares students for a wide range of careers by developing their analytical, research, and communication skills.

Contact:

T. DeWayne Moore, Ph.D. (he/him/his)

Assistant Professor of History, Division of Social Sciences

OFFICE: Woolfolk Digital Preservation Lab, Room 103, G.R. Woolfolk Building

PHONE: 931-265-2555

EMAIL: tdmoore@pvamu.edu

DIGITAL PV PANTHER PROJECT: www.pvpantherproject.com