On Juneteenth, Galveston neighbors and tourists from all over the country will gather at the cute church with the red door — the one that catches the eye of passersby.
And they’ve gathered there to celebrate freedom from enslavement for the past 158 years.
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Sharon Gillins, a Texas genealogist and trustee at Reedy Chapel AME Church, says she has been celebrating Juneteenth “for as long as I can remember. And it’s a focal point in the life of our community.”
Indeed, when the first neighbors came together on January 1, 1866, to celebrate their newly experienced freedom, they stood on land owned by Reedy Chapel, then a Methodist Episcopal South Colored church in the Texas city.
They gathered on New Year’s Day because it was the anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. People came in response to an invitation printed on Dec. 31, 1865, in the Flakes Daily Bulletin. Galveston residents marched from Central Square, where the old Galveston Courthouse stood, accompanied by Buffalo Soldiers they’d invited to maintain order. It was billed as an event for “all colored people, and their friends.”
It was the first Emancipation Day Celebration, as it is called.
They read General Order #3 so they could hear the official language that proclaimed their freedom six months earlier, on June 19, 1865.
Gillins makes the point of dispelling the myth of enslaved people happily working away, unaware of the freedom declared by the Emancipation Proclamation.
Despite a deceptive story that alluded to enslaved people who didn’t know they had been freed, the true record shows, thanks to the Black Press, that they did indeed know.
“We have articles and clips. And remember, Galveston is a port city, so there’s no way the news of the Emancipation Proclamation hadn’t reached them,” Gillins says.
But they couldn’t just walk away under the watchful eye of thousands of Confederate soldiers. So, they most likely secretly celebrated a freedom they had not yet experienced but believed they eventually would do so.
One can merely imagine the frustration of working day in and day out, knowing they’d legally been extricated from the bonds that held them since they came to this country. Imagine knowing freedom had been granted, but that they remained held by owners who had no intention of releasing them without force. So they worked, and they waited. They probably secretly celebrated under the cover of clouds and darkness of night, waiting anxiously for when the actual moment would arrive.
“Texas just refused to comply with the law. It was as if Texas was declaring, if you want them freed, you’d better come free them yourselves,” suggested Texas author D.J. Cox in the 2002 documentary “Juneteenth: Faith & Freedom.”
And so on January 2, 1866, it was reported in a newspaper that “Notwithstanding the storm some eight hundred or a thousand men, women and children took part in the demonstration. Women walked on the sidewalks with their skirts lifted. Men walked in the street. The procession was orderly and creditable to those participating in it.”
The paper went on to report the meeting that was held at the “colored” church on Broadway, “at which addresses were delivered by a number of speakers, among them Gen. Gregory, Assistant Commissioner of Freedmen.”
The newly freed people celebrated Juneteenth at the church on June 19 that same year, thanking God for delivering them to freedom.
Nowadays, Reedy Chapel AME is historically designated as the Mother Church of Texas. It has a seating capacity of 350, but on Juneteenth, there will be chairs in the aisles, people standing in the back, and everyone will be perfectly content to be a part of the historic celebration.
People are invited to bring family and friends, especially the children, because activities have been added for their enjoyment and to let them know they’re included in the fun and the history.
“We’ll have a water slide and photo booths. We’ll have food and craft vendors and photo booths,” Gillins says.
And at 6 p.m., they will assemble at the old Galveston Courthouse and march about three blocks to the church for the 6:30 evening formalities, led by troopers from the Buffalo Soldiers National Museum.
Although the spirit will be much more celebrative than that first observance, the business of the day will be carried out in the same way as ever. Encouraging speeches and the reading of General Order #3 will give the day the same official air.
“People want to think of it as a Black thing or a Texas thing, but it’s not. It’s freedom for everybody, and I suggest celebrating from the 19th of June to the 4th of July,” Ms. Opal Lee, who is known as the grandmother of Juneteenth, said in “Juneteenth: Faith & Freedom.”
As for Reedy Chapel, “People call all year long now,” Gillins says. “People want to visit because it is the Mother Church of Texas, the cute little church with the red door, the steeple, and the stained glass windows. And curiosity lures them in.”