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William Holland: A Mighty Lion at Yates
In 1958, Jack Yates High School moved from its original location at 2610 Elgin Street in the Third Ward to its current location at 3703 Sampson, just a short distance away. It should have been an improvement—modern building, larger facility—but instead it marked a reversal from the school’s position as a central, guiding force for […]
The Dawn at My Back: A Memoir of a Black Texas Upbringing
The Dawn at My Back: Memoir of a Black Texas Upbringing explores what it means to grow up in a racist society. It describes the injustices endured daily and vividly paints a picture of the pain they carry with them. Blue’s story demonstrates the power of racism to rip families apart, even as one consciously […]
Zinetta Burney: Crossing Alabama St.
One of the most significant socio-economic impacts resulting from white supremacy, and its attending corollary of Black inferiority, was the use of race as a determinant of residential housing patterns which forced African American families into isolation in segregated neighborhoods. For Zinetta Burney and her African American neighbors in Houston’s Third Ward, Alabama Street was […]
UH & TSU Perpetuating “Separate but Equal”
In 1927, the Houston Independent School District (HISD) created two colleges during a local economic boom: Houston Junior College, and a “separate but equal” branch, Houston Colored Junior College. Eventually, they were designated the University of Houston and Texas Southern University respectively. What became TSU only admitted black applicants until 1956, and UH only admitted […]
AABL & the Fight for Civil Rights at UH
The University of Houston (UH) is celebrated today as one of the most diverse research institutions in the nation. It also has one of the oldest African American Studies programs in the country. The transition UH has made from its foundation as an exclusively white university, to becoming a diverse school with ethnic studies programs, […]
Houston’s First Ward: Producing Food from Farm to Counter
In 1839 Houston was divided into four wards, each a geographic area which provided representation for the municipal government. The crossing at Congress Avenue and Main Street became the intersecting point for dividing the wards. The First Ward, located in the northwest quadrant of that intersection, bordered the strategic location where Buffalo Bayou and White […]
From Das Zweiter to El Segundo, A Brief History of Houston’s Second Ward
Second Ward was home to the extremely wealthy and extremely poor, bartenders and brewers, renters and ranchers, priests and politicos. The residents lived in a variety of situations ranging from traditional neighborhoods to suburban ranches. The area boasted one of Houston’s first churches, several early park and recreational areas, and the city’s first suburb.
The KKK in Houston and Harris County, 1920-1925
On the evening of November 27, 1920, some two hundred mysterious figures threaded their way behind a torch bearer through the downtown streets of Houston. A hush fell over thousands of onlookers as the hooded figures silently “passed like specters from another world.” The second Ku Klux Klan had arrived.
Letter from the Editor: Confronting Jim Crow
As a white boy with working class parents, racism was in the air I breathed in my youth. Jim Crow touched every part of my life. Racial attitudes handed down by poor whites in the South for generations remained pervasive and unrelenting in my world in the 1950s and early 1960s. The underlying reality was […]
Houston’s Helping Hand: Remembering Katrina
Our late Oral History Director, Ernesto Valdes, conceived the idea of a fifth anniversary commemorative issue of Houston’s response to Hurricane Katrina. This issue features oral history interviews with many Houstonians who helped with the relief effort. Click here to view the pdf of Volume 7, Number 3.