By A’Viyon M. Robinson Rev. John Henry “Jack” Yates (1828–1897) was a father, husband, man of God, community leader, and entrepreneur. In 1926, students honored Yates’s legacy by voting to name their new school Jack Yates Senior High School. Photo in the public domain. When mentioning Jack Yates High School to a native Houstonian, they might recount fond memories or well-known anecdotes about a school whose legacy is […]
By Antonio Lopez and Andres Rios The original Jack Yates campus, located at 2610 Elgin, was the second Black high school in Houston. The school became a pillar of the community and a beacon of education in the Third Ward. The school has been home to notable alumni, from musicians and artists to activists and politicians. Photo courtesy of the Sloane Collection. A pillar […]
By: Heather Butina-Sutton Hazel Hainsworth Young with her students at Jack Yates High School, 1949. A lifelong educator, Young taught Latin at Yates for thirty-two years. Richard Hayes Sr. said, “The teachers like Mrs. [Hazel] Hainesworth and Mrs. Virginia Miller who taught me Latin…were the heroes, nuns of our time. They really made us.” Photo Courtesy of the […]
Tucked between the high-rises that make up Houston’s iconic skyline sits Sam Houston Park. The city’s first municipal park, which was known as City Park until 1902, Sam Houston Park has long been a place where Houstonians go to escape the hustle and bustle of downtown, but it is more than that. With several of […]
The historic Third Ward was originally an area east of Main Street, south of Congress Street and extending to the city limits. For the residents of the Third Ward, their identity with the ward went beyond the original intent of the nomenclature as a political division.
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 […]
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.
To read the full text of this article by Scott Stabler that appeared in the Fall 2005 issue of Houston History, download the pdf version.
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