Uneasy Third Ward Residents Decry 'Whitewashed' Neighborhood

quote:

---

Houston’s historic Third Ward is one of six wards within the city. The neighborhood is home to the famous Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church, where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once spoke on the racial injustices and inequalities that African-Americans suffered at the hands of a prejudiced society. Houstonian Rennette Brown Lucien remembers the area as a “pillar of economics,” but says that, in her 47 years, "I have seen this area come and go — it’s no longer a center for black economics because it is being whitewashed now.”


That which once provided comfort and unity in the traditionally black neighborhood is now deteriorating — some residents say they feel helpless at the hands of the economic forces that have begun swooping in to “improve" the land. These so-called saviors are tearing down the very infrastructure the community was built upon and, in its place, erecting building after building of pricey high-rise housing. Scattered remnants of the neighborhood's history remain, reminders of the its past and present struggles.

---

quote:

---

When asked if he feels Third Ward is no longer a place he can call home, Holmes emphatically replies, “Well, hell yeah I do! It was safer when it was just us — we knew each other and we knew who our ‘outsiders’ were. We knew who to trust.”

In fact, this mistrust that Mr. Holmes touched on is so rampant in Third Ward that the Houston Press had to convince those with whom we spoke that we weren't some sort of "official" infringing on their territory, or an undercover agent. They also declined to have their picture taken.

---

quote:

---

"We took it for granted, and now we are fighting for what was ours in the first place,” he says.

---