Visited site of the first sermon, the first service and the first congregation in Springfield, Missouri, held in a log cabin built by enslaved men and women for the use of others. The builders and those who stole their labor are buried in same cemetery, but not in same section.

"It taught us how to build a home, how to build a church, how to build a school, and how to build a person. Slavery took a theological truth—that the creature builds—gave thanks for it, broke it into pieces, and forced us to eat the stones."

-Willie James Jennings

The first sermon, first service, and first congregation in Springfield, MO is described in 1883 history of Greene County, Missouri.

The marker on College Street says that the William Fulbright family built cabin where the first service took place. But other accounts tell a different story. Who built the cabin? Hannah Fulbright and up to 30 other African American men and women enslaved by William Fulbright.

“Adah Fulbright, descendant of a pioneer Springfield, Missouri, family, who taught elementary grades and music classes at both Lincoln schools... Fulbright's family arrived in Springfield with the white Fulbrights. Her ancestors built the first log cabin."
https://digitalcollections.missouristate.edu/digital/collection/LedererExhibit/id/179/

The white Fulbrights, including William Fulbright (1785-1843), are buried at Springfield's Hazelwood Cemetery.

So are the enslaved men and women who built the Fulbright cabin, as well their descendants. Their final resting place is on the opposite side of Hazelwood Cemetery.

Their descendants include Tuskegee Airman Stephen Fulbright, later a professor and administrator at North Carolina Central University.

The Tuskegee Airmen were excluded from the officers club at Freeman Field by a white commander. In March and April of 1945, 60 African American officers challenged this policy by entering the club.

About 100 Tuskegee Airmen were arrested. Stewart Fulbright was pressured to sign a statement excluding them from the officers club. He wouldn't sign. "I can read the policy. But I don't understand it." (This account comes from the News & Observer from March 30, 2003).

This event paved the way for the desegregation of the armed forces. “We think that it broke the camel’s back because they had to recognize the fact that 104 officers were arrested, and that they all defied this order, and the order was said to be illegal." https://www.history.com/news/tuskegee-airmen-impact-civil-rights-movement

Born in Springfield, Missouri, Dr. Stewart Fulbright passed away in 2012. As a Fulbright, his roots go back to Springfield's earliest years, when men and women with the same name built the first house, also the site of the first sermon, the first service, and the first church.

Dr. Stewart Fulbright's parents Stewart Benjamin Fulbright and Anna Denton Fulbright Rollins were laid to rest in Springfield's Hazelwood Cemetery.

Hazelwood is also the final resting place of Dr. Fulbright's grandparents Matthew Fulbright
(1860–1905) and Lottie Hannah Looney Fulbright
(1863–1933).

For more on the remarkable life of Springfield native and Tuskegee Airman Dr. Stewart Fulbright, see this video from @officialSPS. A 1937 graduate of Lincoln High School, Dr. Fulbright was inducted into the Springfield Public Schools Hall of Fame in 2012.

In 1991 a family reunion for the descendants of German immigrant Johann Wilhelm Volprect (Anglicized as Fulbright) took place in Springfield, Missouri. The article from the News-Leader mentions distant cousin J. William Fulbright.

In 1929 a marker honoring the Fulbright cabin was unveiled on College St. Great great grandaughters of brothers John and William Fulbright, as well as Congressman Fulbright of Doniphan, MO, were present. The story doesn't mention the enslaved men and women who built the cabin.

Over a century later, the marker is still there on a rundown stretch of College Street across from Birthplace of Route 66 Roadside Park.