On September 2, 2002 a group of city officials and Houston’s then-mayor, Lee P. Brown, solidified the fate of an abandoned brick building at 1300 Victor Street in Freedmen’s Town Historic District. Through a significant restoration effort, Fourth Ward’s late-1920s-era African-American elementary school, vacant since 1984, was to become a dual-purpose cultural center and research […]
Tag Archives | Freedmen’s Town
Carter Wesley and the Making of Houston’s Civic Culture
By Amilcar Shabazz Click here to read a pdf of the full article.
Two Worlds a Mile Apart, A Brief History of the Fourth Ward
Clatter of light rail running down Main Street, cars roaring by, crowds gathering at the crosswalk champing to get on with the day—hectic life fills twenty-first century downtown Houston. But when a Houstonian takes a short stroll from the busy intersection of Congress and Main to nearby Sesquicentennial Park and wanders down the walk to […]
Freedman’s Town: A Lesson in the Failure of Historic Preservation
The struggle to preserve the history of Freedmen’s Town in Houston, Texas is entangled in the questionable systems of urban renewal and development, which inevitably work to displace many of the poor African American residents from the community.
Oil in Houston
Wildcats and sweet crude. Live in Houston long enough and you’ll learn that wildcats are exploration oil wells and the price of sweet crude – the high-quality, low-sulfur oil used for processing gasoline – is a closely watched economic indicator. But if you just got here or want a refresher on what the oil industry […]
Volume 8, Number 2
Oil in Houston Vol. 8, No. 2 (Spring 2011) Download PDF Letter from Editor 2 Faces of Texas Oil by Story Sloane III 8 We’re Sticking by Our Union: The Battle for Baytown, 1942-1943 by Michael Boston 15 Witness to the Day of Reckoning: Exxon Valdez Oil Spill, March 24, 1989 A Conversation […]
Letter from the Editor – Historic Preservation
Click here to view the pdf.