Organized in 1848, decades before emancipation, as Galveston's first Black congregation with the enslaved and free Black community meeting under white Methodist oversight, Reedy Chapel reorganized as an independent African Methodist Episcopal congregation immediately after the Civil War in 1867, making it the oldest Black church in Texas. On June 19, 1865, it was the final stop on Union troops' march through Galveston reading General Order No. 3, then known simply as the Negro Church on Broadway. Freed people marched from the county courthouse to the church to celebrate their emancipation that year, a tradition of a Juneteenth procession to the church that continues today.