Reedy Chapel-AME Church - Galveston (TX)

5 /5 Shahram Tabibzadegan: This is a historic location and building. The Reedy Chapel is the starting point of the Emancipation Trail, a 51-mile trail used by newly freed slaves and other people of African descent in the 19th century. When Major General Gordon Granger of the union army arrived in Galveston with the news that all slaves were free, many emancipated individuals walked to freedom from this location at Reedy Chapel. That event led to the celebration of June Teen, now a national Federal Holiday. There’s only one other trail of its kind in the United States that focuses on African Americans and their experiences: the Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail. The Emancipation Trail includes Independence Heights, Freedmen’s Town and Emancipation Park in Houston. It also includes the site of Galveston’s Osterman building, where the Union Army General told the people of Galveston that all slaves were free.

5 /5 Chad Clayton: May God bless this historic place, established for Galveston slaves to worship their God. May Americans one day restore these broken places. Thank God for every person who built this sacred space and has maintained it over generations. Isaiah 58:12 MSG: “This is the kind of fast day I’m after: to break the chains of injustice, get rid of exploitation in the workplace, free the oppressed, cancel debts. What I’m interested in seeing you do is: sharing your food with the hungry, inviting the homeless poor into your homes, putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad, being available to your own families. Do this and the lights will turn on, and your lives will turn around at once. Your righteousness will pave your way. The God of glory will secure your passage. Then when you pray, God will answer. You’ll call out for help and I’ll say, ‘Here I am.’ “If you get rid of unfair practices, quit blaming victims, quit gossiping about other people’s sins, If you are generous with the hungry and start giving yourselves to the down-and-out, Your lives will begin to glow in the darkness, your shadowed lives will be bathed in sunlight. I will always show you where to go. I’ll give you a full life in the emptiest of places— firm muscles, strong bones. You’ll be like a well-watered garden, a gurgling spring that never runs dry. You’ll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew, rebuild the foundations from out of your past. You’ll be known as those who can fix anything, restore old ruins, rebuild and renovate, make the community livable again.”

5 /5 Marcus Moore: Historic AME Church, I found it researching Juneteenth in Galveston. Theres a lot of history in Galveston!

5 /5 Cheryl Crayton: Lots of history. First Juneteeth unfolded here. Oldest AME church in Texas. Antique pipe organ still in working order.

5 /5 Verna: Great historically black church. All are welcomed.