One church is left standing in Hillcrest. Here's what members say.

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Brooks AME Worship Center is believed to be the last church in the historically Black and Hispanic Hillcrest neighborhood in Corpus Christi, Texas.

Parishioners and advocates have rallied against projects like the new Harbor Bridge and a proposed desalination plant.

There was a stillness to the Sunday morning that settled across North Port Avenue.

The blocks leading up to Brooks AME Worship Center stirred little with the exception of the breeze, the properties on the main thoroughfare largely made up of fallow lots, light industry and warehouses.

But on the corner of North Port Avenue and Summers Street, there was what the Rev. Claudia Rush described in a recent sermon as “a party going on.”

Gathered beneath the wood-vaulted ceiling of the chapel, about two dozen