Newly freed slaves had settled there at the end of the 19th century and had built their homes with their own hands: Freedmen’s Town, a district of Houston steeped in history, has just been classified as part of the heritage of this city in the south of the States. -United.
On Wednesday, after the city council vote, the African-American mayor of the largest city in Texas, Sylvester Turner, said he could not imagine “a better day than Juneteenth to share this good news”.
“Juneteenth”, a contraction of the words “June” and “19” in English, commemorates June 19, 1865, the day the last slaves in Galveston, about 50 miles from Houston, learned they were free, more than two years later the Emancipation Proclamation signed by President Abraham Lincoln. Joe Biden has just dedicated this day of tribute by giving it the status of a federal holiday.
Freedmen’s Town was erected in the wake of this event when, informed of their release, hundreds of former slaves had left the plantations of Texas and Louisiana to start a new life in Houston, whose port was in full development.
“They settled on the south shore of Buffalo Bayou. It was woods and swamps that nobody wanted but that they managed to make habitable”, explains on the spot to AFP Charonda Johnson, vice-president from the Freedmen’s Town association.
– Houses and cobbled street –
At the beginning of the 20th century, its thousands of inhabitants, its more than 400 shops, restaurants, jazz and blues clubs, as well as the gospel songs which escaped from its churches earned the district the nickname of “Harlem of the south. “, a reference to the black New York neighborhood that was developing at the same time.
The pretty wooden houses multiplied at the time, thanks to the know-how of the carpenters and workers who erected those of the large plantation owners.
In front of the old house, in poor condition, of a charismatic reverend of the time, Zion Escobar, executive director of Houston Freedmen’s Town Conservancy, is enthusiastic about the spotlight that the ranking of the district offers to the work she has. started three years ago, when the association was founded.
Freedmen’s Town is indeed the first district of Houston to benefit from this status, which will highlight its rich history.
This 36-year-old engineer, who grew up in the region, lists the thousand projects that await the neighborhood.
Among them, renovations of houses and roads, the creation within a year of a center to welcome the public and offer guided tours, the development of an augmented reality application or the submission of an application so that the area is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, a rarity in Texas.
In the heart of the district, barely half a square kilometer, churches, houses or cemeteries are concentrated to visit, as well as a street paved with red bricks, the layout of which pays homage to the religious traditions of the Yoruba, a people of Africa. from West.
– Highlight the story –
“The inhabitants had to sign petitions to obtain that the street be paved and some of them participated in the laying of bricks in 1914”, explains Zion Escobar in the saving shade of a tree which protects her from the oppressive heat.
In 2014, less sensitive than today to this heritage, “the city council voted to remove the bricks,” laments Charonda Johnson, showing the photo of an activist lying on the ground to stop the work.
A judge finally allowed their preservation and today we can walk on these historic cobblestones while observing the skyscrapers of the city center just a stone’s throw away.
If a few black families still rent their accommodation in the neighborhood, most have had to leave over the decades, driven in particular by the rise in prices.
However, specifies Zion Escobar, “the current population, with rather diverse origins, is really keen to highlight this black history”.
Freedmen’s Town should also soon be one of the last stages of a “path to emancipation” project, which will be managed by the Federal National Parks Service.
Currently under study, this approximately 82-kilometer route linking Galveston to Houston will reveal “what happened to these people after they received their freedom,” explains Zion Escobar.
“National parks put little emphasis on black history,” she regrets. However, “they are partly there for that, to recognize that it is part of our national history”.
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