 In the 1920s, prior to the construction of Our Mother of Mercy, a group of Louisiana Creole people attended the Hispanic Our Lady of Guadalupe Church because it was the closest church to the Frenchtown area of the Fifth Ward.Because the Our Lady of Guadalupe Church church treated the Creole people in a discriminatory manner, by forcing them to confess and take communion after people of other races, and requiring them to take the back pews, the Creoles opted to build their own church.The number of African-American Catholics in Houston increased after the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 affected rural areas in the Southern United States.