COPPERAS COVE, Texas — On a Sunday morning in February, the voices inside Adams Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church rise before anything else does.

The choir fills the sanctuary with something that is hard to describe and impossible to ignore. It is joy. It is history. It is home.

For the congregation gathered inside this Copperas Cove church during Black History Month, that is exactly the point.

“They live Black history every day,” said Reverend Doctor Eddie Ellis Junior, pastor of Adams Chapel AME Church. “But just to be able to celebrate it like they do today — is something special.”

Adams Chapel AME Church has roots that run deep in the Killeen community. Founded in 1966 by Reverend Velma Hayden and her husband Frederick, the church began with just twelve members worshiping together in their living room. From there, the congregation moved to a local Masonic lodge before eventually signing a promissory note and settling into the building they call home today.

Nearly fifty years later, the church is approaching a milestone anniversary — and the spirit that built it from the ground up has never wavered.

“Adams Chapel means a foundation,” said Associate Pastor Silas Swint, who spent 29 years pastoring across the district before returning to serve at Adams Chapel. “It is kind of like coming home.”

A Legacy Rooted In The AME Church

The history of Adams Chapel is inseparable from the broader history of the African Methodist Episcopal Church itself — a denomination born from an act of defiance more than two centuries ago.

In the 1700s, Bishop Richard Allen and fellow minister Absalom Jones were members of St. George’s Methodist Church in Philadelphia, where Black worshipers were forced to sit separately from white congregants upstairs. When church leaders interrupted Allen mid-prayer and told him he was praying too loudly, Allen calmly replied that he would rise when he finished praying.

When he stood up and walked out — every Black worshiper in that building walked out with him.

They traveled roughly 200 yards down the road, made a left turn, and founded what would become Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church — the first AME church in America. Bishop Allen’s portrait now hangs on the wall inside Adams Chapel, watching over the congregation every Sunday.

“Richard Allen was the founder of the AME Church,” Rev. Ellis explained. “He and those who walked out with him built something that has lasted for centuries, and we carry that same spirit right here.”

A Pastor Who Has Lived History

For Rev. Ellis, Black History Month is not an abstraction. At 70 years old, he has lived through the civil rights movement, witnessed segregation firsthand and seen the long, difficult arc of progress bend slowly toward something better.

“I have seen the oppression, I have seen segregation,” Ellis said. “And what it means to me is moving forward. Black history means pride in the community — and seeing that our hard work has been recognized.”

But for Rev. Ellis, moving forward has never meant forgetting where you came from. It is a message he carries into everything he does — from his Sunday sermons to community programs he developed in Marlin, Texas, where he worked with local prosecutors to give first-time juvenile offenders a path to college instead of jail.

Before leaving Marlin, nine young men had been enrolled at Philander Smith College. Eight of them graduated.

“I can give you all the financial help that you need,” Ellis said, reflecting on the lessons he has passed down to his own two sons. “But for you to be a success in this world, you are going to have to put forth the effort yourself.”

A Community That Shows Up For Each Other

Beyond the Sunday service, Adams Chapel is woven into the fabric of the Killeen community. The church hosts an annual community day at Kearance Park in memory of longtime member Sister Donnie Davis, who worshiped at Adams Chapel for 45 years. They distribute Thanksgiving and Christmas food baskets and provide clothing, coats and school supplies to students at Parker Heights Middle School and Eastern Hills throughout the year.

For Steward Pro Tem Charles Allen Cyrus, who first found Adams Chapel after being reassigned to Fort Hood in 1992, the church has been an anchor through more than two decades of military life.

“I have done over 25 years in the army,” Cyrus said. “I have been through so many things. My church has always been my base. It has always kept me grounded.”

Former member and ordained elder Edward Philmon, who has attended the church since its earliest days and still returns for special occasions, said the story of Adams Chapel is ultimately a story about remembering.

“Embrace the future — but don’t forget the past,” Philmon said. “If you don’t remember your history, you’ll end up back where you were. History should propel us. I went to my first integrated school in 1965. That was a long time ago. But really — not that long ago.”

When asked to describe what it feels like to look out at his congregation on a Sunday morning like this one, Rev. Ellis paused. Then he smiled.

“It’s a sense of pride,” Ellis said. “Now I’m a big crybaby. I would have started crying behind the pulpit — but I knew she was back there at the camera.”

He laughed. Then he grew still.

“I cannot do anything without recognizing whose shoulders I’m standing on,” Ellis said. “And I’m standing on some very giant shoulders — my grandparents, my mother, brothers and sisters and even the neighborhood I grew up in. Someone made it possible for me to be here.”

Inside Adams Chapel on this February morning, the choir kept singing. The congregation kept clapping. And the history kept breathing — loud, joyful and very much alive.