Galilee Missionary Baptist Church
Houston, Harris County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Galilee Missionary Baptist Church is located in the community of Acres (Acre) Homes, developed beginning in 1910 by the Wright Land Company. The company sold plots of land for low prices, making it affordable for many families. By the 1930s, a large majority of those living in the neighborhood were African American. In the following decades, Acres Homes experienced significant population and business growth. The Rev. D. Hartman organized Galilee Missionary Baptist Church in 1913, with services held under a brush arbor. By 1915, the Wright Land Company sold land located at the church’s current site to church trustees, and members began construction of a new building. In the following years, under the leadership of the Rev. Jack C. Smith, members formed many auxiliaries and held traditional events such as Juneteenth celebrations, homecoming and the church’s anniversary. The Rev. D.S. Bailey served as pastor of the church from 1947 until his death in 1977, and under his leadership the church experienced tremendous growth. Bailey worked with community, political, school and business leaders in Acres Homes during his tenure. In 1979, the city of Houston passed an ordinance changing the name of Sherwin Street, on which the church is located, to D.S. Bailey Lane. As membership grew over the years, the church rebuilt several times, including a large sanctuary constructed in 2003. Galilee Missionary Baptist Church remains an important community institution, unifying and serving the residents of Acres Homes and surrounding areas. (2006)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Galilee Missionary Baptist Church took root in Acres Homes, a Houston neighborhood the Wright Land Company opened in 1910 by selling affordable plots that drew a largely African American community. The Rev. D. Hartman organized the congregation in 1913 under a brush arbor, and by 1915 the land company sold the church its permanent site. Under long-serving pastor the Rev. D.S. Bailey—honored when the city renamed his street D.S. Bailey Lane in 1979—the church grew into a pillar of the community.
Why it matters
The church's story traces the making of one of Houston's largest African American neighborhoods and the central role Black congregations played as anchors of community life, leadership, and celebration.
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Related people
- · Rev. D. Hartman
- · Rev. D.S. Bailey
- · Rev. Jack C. Smith
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Acres Homes Community
Houston, TX
Beginning in 1910, developer Alfred A. Wright platted the subdivisions that became Acres Homes, drawing Black families with cheap land, low taxes, and freedom from building restrictions. Lacking city utilities, the community built itself — churches, schools, Masonic halls, businesses, and even the South's first Black-owned bus line. By the 1950s it was celebrated as one of the largest all-Black communities in the United States, retaining its identity even after Houston annexed it in the 1960s and 70s.
Greater Ward A.M.E. Church
Houston, TX
Organized in 1913 and named for A.M.E. Bishop Thomas M. D. Ward, this is the oldest congregation in Houston's Acres Homes community. It began in the home of Rev. John T. Williams, rebuilt after a 1934 fire, and raised its lasting sanctuary in 1955. Under ministers like Rev. Ollie Lewis Dawson—an NAACP activist who made the church a meeting place for civic affairs—it became a hub of community life, its trustees even winning the naming of nearby streets for historically Black colleges.
George Washington Carver High School
Houston, TX
In the segregated Jim Crow South, the African American neighborhood of Acres Homes built its own schoolhouse in 1915, beginning as the one-room White Oak (Colored) School. Over the following decades it grew alongside a wave of Black migration into the community, gaining accreditation and a high school under longtime principal A.B. Anderson and taking the name of scientist George Washington Carver. From a single crowded room it evolved into today's magnet campus for applied technology, engineering, and the arts.
Booker T. Washington High School
Houston, TX
Founded in 1893 as Colored High School in Houston's Fourth Ward, this was the first high school open to African Americans in the city, teaching Latin, science, mathematics and more at a time when Black secondary education was scarce across the South. It produced its first graduate by 1896, housed Houston's first library accessible to African Americans in 1909, and became a seedbed for higher education that ultimately grew into Texas Southern University. Renamed in 1927 for Booker T. Washington, the school later relocated to Independence Heights and pioneered Houston's first magnet program in 1974.