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.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
To understand Galilee Missionary Baptist Church, start with the ground it stands on. In 1910 the Wright Land Company opened a stretch of land north of Houston and began selling plots cheaply, deliberately within reach of working families. That single decision — affordable land, sold in small pieces — set the character of the neighborhood that came to be called Acres Homes.
This was the Progressive and Modern era, a time when Black families across the South and the growing cities of Texas were searching for places where they could own property, build, and set down permanent roots. Land ownership was never a small thing; it meant a stake, a measure of independence, and something to pass on.
By the 1930s a large majority of the people living in Acres Homes were African American, and in the decades that followed the neighborhood filled in with homes, businesses, and institutions of its own. A community was assembling itself, plot by plot — and a place like that needs a gathering point.
People & events
That gathering point arrived early. In 1913 the Rev. D. Hartman organized the congregation, and at first there was no building at all — services were held under a brush arbor, an open-air shelter of posts and branches that generations of frontier and rural churches used before they could raise walls. People worshiped in the shade of a roof made of leaves.
A permanent home came quickly. By 1915 the Wright Land Company sold the church's trustees the land it still occupies, and the members set about building. From there the congregation grew into something larger than a Sunday service. Under the Rev. Jack C. Smith, members formed auxiliaries and kept the calendar that knits a community together — homecoming, the church's own anniversary, and Juneteenth, the Texas-born celebration of emancipation.
The church's longest chapter belonged to the Rev. D.S. Bailey, who served as pastor from 1947 until his death in 1977 — three decades. Under him the congregation flourished, and Bailey reached well beyond the sanctuary walls, working alongside community, political, school, and business leaders across Acres Homes. In 1979 the city of Houston honored him in the most literal way a neighborhood can: it renamed Sherwin Street, where the church sits, D.S. Bailey Lane.
Its place in the American story
The story here is a story that repeats across the American map, though every version is local. In the decades after emancipation and through the twentieth century, the Black church was rarely just a place of worship. It was often the first institution a community owned outright, and so it became the place where leaders were formed, where celebrations were held, where mutual aid and organizing found a room to meet.
Acres Homes shows how a neighborhood and its church grew up together. A land company's plots gave families a foothold; a congregation gave them a center of gravity. That a pastor's name could end up on the street sign says something plain about how these institutions and their leaders were woven into civic life.
And notice the celebrations the church kept: Juneteenth, born in Texas in 1865 when word of freedom finally reached the enslaved people of the state, carried forward year after year in a local sanctuary. National memory survives because ordinary congregations choose to keep it alive.
If you visit
Begin with the street sign. D.S. Bailey Lane is itself part of the marker's story — a small, permanent tribute to a pastor whose thirty years shaped the neighborhood, and a reminder that you are standing in Acres Homes, not just passing through it.
Look at the church building with its history in mind. The large sanctuary was constructed in 2003, the latest in a series of rebuildings that trace more than a century of a growing congregation — from brush arbor, to the first frame building on land bought in 1915, to what stands today. The newness of the walls is not the age of the community.
If your travels bring you here, treat it as a window into one of Houston's major African American neighborhoods. This is a working, living institution, so come respectfully and mind that services and events may be underway. It fits naturally into a day spent exploring the history of Black Houston — a single congregation that helps explain how a whole community was made.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Rev. D. Hartman
- · Rev. D.S. Bailey
- · Rev. Jack C. Smith
Themes & tags
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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.
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