History of African Americans in Houston
The African American population in Houston, Texas, has been a significant part of the city's community since its establishment. The Greater Houston area has the largest population of African Americans in Texas and west of the Mississippi River. Black Enterprise has referred to Houston as a Black mecca.
History
When Houston was founded in 1836, an African-American community had already begun to be established. In 1860, 99% of the city's African American population was enslaved; there were eight free blacks and 1,060 slaves. Before the American Civil War, enslaved African-Americans living near Houston worked on sugar and cotton plantations, while most of those living within the city limits held domestic and artisan jobs.Although slavery ended after the U.S. Civil War, by the mid-1870s racial segregation became codified throughout the South, including Texas. African Americans in Houston were poorly represented by the predominantly white state legislature and city council, and were politically disenfranchised during the Jim Crow era; whites had used a variety of tactics, including militias and legislation, to re-establish political and social supremacy throughout the South. African Americans have owned land in Houston since Texas’ early colonial period and still is to this present day.
In 1929 Houston Planning Commission chairperson Will Hogg made a proposal to designate areas of the city by race in its zoning so African-Americans do not become too numerous near White communities; the city did not enact this as it never adopted zoning.
In the 1940s and 1950s black people from small southern towns moved to Houston, resulting in the black communities increasing in size. The black population in the Third Ward became larger and therefore closer in proximity to nearby Jewish communities. White people began to move from the Third Ward area, partly due to the passage of Brown vs. Board of Education in 1954.
Texas Southern University students led the integration of Houston in the 1960s. On Friday, March 4, 1960, Texas Southern University students led Houston's first sit-in at the Weingarten's grocery store lunch counter located at 4110 Almeda Road. That sit-in played a major role in the desegregation of Houston's white owned businesses. Today, a U.S. Post Office sits at that location; however, a Texas Historical Marker sits in the front of the building reminding visitors of the courageous role TSU students played in the desegregation of Houston, Texas. Six months after their first sit-in, 70 Houston lunch counters were desegregated. The success of their continued efforts eventually led to the full integration of businesses within the city.
In 1970, 90% of the black people in Houston lived in mostly African-American neighborhoods. By 1980 this decreased to 82%.
Historically, the City of Houston placed established landfill facilities in established African American neighborhoods. Private companies also located landfills in black neighborhoods. Between the early 1920s and the late 1970s the five municipal sanitary landfills were in black neighborhoods. During the same period, six of the eight municipal solid waste incinerators resided in mostly black neighborhoods. From 1970 to 1978 three of the four private landfills established during that period were located in Houston black neighborhoods. Around that era African Americans made up around 25% of the city's population. Houston City Council, which decided where the landfills would be located, was entirely composed of white residents until 1972. The political efforts and advocacy behind a 1979 federal lawsuit regarding one proposed landfill led to political changes that ended the deliberate placement of landfills in black neighborhoods.Image:RyanMiddleSchoolHouston.JPG|thumb|right|The Baylor College of Medicine Academy at Ryan exists at the first location of Yates Colored High School
In 1980, the city had 440,257 African American residents, making it one of the largest black populations in the country. As of 1987 most African Americans in Houston continued to live in inner-city black neighborhoods, even though they gained the legal right to move to any neighborhood. According to research at the University of Chicago, many African Americans choose to live in neighborhoods where they were raised.
From the 1980 United States census to the 1990 U.S. census, many African Americans left traditional African-American neighborhoods such as the MacGregor area, Settegast, Sunnyside, and the Third Ward and entered parts of Southwest Houston, such as Alief, Fondren Southwest, Sharpstown, Westchase, and Westwood. Meanwhile, a significant percentage of Houston's Non-Hispanic whites population left the city for suburban communities, this phenomenon was known as white flight.
In 2004, some African-Americans who had lived in the suburbs had returned to the inner city area due to their previous ties to those communities.
By 2005 the outflow from traditional black neighborhoods, such as the Third Ward, Sunnyside, Kashmere Gardens, and the Fifth Ward continued, with blacks moving to Alief, other parts of Southwest Houston, Fresno, Missouri City, and northwestern suburbs. Around 2005, African Americans began to move to an area around Farm to Market Road 1960, in an unincorporated area in Harris County. In many traditional inner-city black neighborhoods, Mexican and Latino residents moved in. Houston is one of the fastest-growing large cities in the United States, and a large portion of that growth is due to an influx of Black residents. In addition to the New Great Migration, many African Americans in the US are now recently moving to Houston for lower cost of living and more job opportunities. Houston gained approximately 233,000 African-Americans between 2000 and 2010. Having the largest black population west of the Mississippi River, Houston is known as a center of African-American political power, education, economic prosperity, and culture, often referred to as a black mecca. Houston is ranked among best U.S. metros for Black professionals.
According to LendingTree, there are 3,586 Black-owned businesses out of 108,772 total businesses in Houston. Thats 3.3% while Black Americans make up 22.4% of Houston's population.
An additional 150,000 to 250,000 mostly black evacuees arrived in 2005 from the New Orleans metro after Hurricane Katrina, with many of them deciding to stay in Houston.
Commerce
The African American community in Houston had a rich diverse economic history. Throughout the communities, many businesses flourished. The Wards, 3rd, 4th and 5th had many restaurants, theaters, clubs, boarding houses, carriage delivery services, millinery shops, stationery shops, newspaper publishers, dry goods stores, banks-savings and loans, insurance companies, seamstresses and tailor shops just to name a few. There were two major office buildings that housed many African American businesses, the Pilgrims Building The agricultural history included a host of farmers and ranchers. was home to Sky Ranch the African American airport/air transport service, started by Tuskegee Airmen in the mid-1900s. In the early 1900s the community celebrated DeRoLoc which helped to promote the economic development of the community. This week long event was celebrated by an Agricultural/Industrial Exhibition, Ball, and Carnival. Many of the businesses benefited by all the people that attended from the region. The first Official DeRoLoc Event in Emancipation Park hosted 4,000 people, the event stopped in 1929 and was recently revived by a local business in Houston. In Acres homes, there was the first African American Bus Company that made many runs to/from downtown Houston, to Acres homes providing transportation to many African Americans.Cuisine
The Louisiana Creole people who settled Houston around the 1920s brought their cuisine with them. The Creole and Cajun cuisine style spread in Houston in the post-World War II era, which led to various Creole food chains such as Frenchy's Chicken, Pappadeaux, and Popeyes. Creole dishes include boudin, black rice and shrimp creole, crawfish, gumbo, and jambalaya. Bernadette Pruitt, author of The Other Great Migration: The Movement of Rural African Americans to Houston, 1900-1941, wrote that Creole cooking became "an important cultural bridge" in the city and in its African American community, and that, "As cooks, Creole housewives transformed Houston's typical southern cuisine."In 2021 Alison Cook of the Houston Chronicle wrote that hamburger restaurants in historically black neighborhoods in Houston typically prepare hamburgers "exceptionally charred and well-done".
In 2020, according to Emma Balter of the Houston Chronicle most of the vegan restaurants she chronicled, in a list that was "comprehensive, yet not exhaustive", were owned by African-Americans.
Demographics
From the 1870s to the 1890s, African Americans made up almost 40% of Houston's population. Between 1910 and 1970 the African American population ranged from 21% to 32.7%.In 1870 36% of the African-Americans in Houston lived in the Fourth Ward, 29% lived in the Third Ward, 16% lived in the Fifth Ward, and 19% lived in other areas. In 1910 the plurality now lived in the Third Ward, with 32%; the Fourth Ward, Fifth Ward, and other areas had 27%, 21%, and 20% respectively.
There were about 34,000 African-Americans in Houston in the 1920s, and in the 1930s there were about 63,000 African-Americans. In 1920, 20% of the people classified as "black" were subclassified as "mulatto"; the census stopped taking statistics on "mulatto" people after 1920. In the racial segregation era people of Louisiana Creole origin with African heritage attended black institutions such as schools even though they often considered themselves racially distinct from non-Creole African Americans. Creoles spoke Louisiana Creole French, making them linguistically distinct. Creoles also had different musical practices as they performed Southwest Louisiana-style "la-la". In the 1920s the "San Felipe districts" had the largest group of African-Americans, the Third and Fifth wards had other significant communities.
In 1940 the African-American population numbered 86,302, 21.4% of the number of people in Houston. The same population increased to 125,400, 21% of the city population, in 1950. 87.9% of the population increase from 1940 to 1950 was due to African-Americans moving from other parts of the United States, mostly Louisiana and Texas; most of the migrating African-Americans from rural areas and small towns. 1960 the African-American population numbered 215,037, 25.7% of the city population. In the central city, from 1950 to 1960, the African-American population increased by 20,299. Their percentage of the total population increased during that period from 23.4% to 31.1% because large numbers of white people left the central city. In 1970 the African-American population numbered 316,922, 25.7% of the city population. By 1980, Houston had 440,257 African American residents, making it one of the largest black populations in the country.
In 2004 55% of the African American population born in Harris County originated from the Houston area either by birth or through growing up there as children.
Between 2010 and 2015, Houston added about 100,000 new black residents to the area. Only behind the Atlanta and Dallas areas.
Many African Americans in the US are now recently moving to Houston due to the city's well-established and influential Black or African American community.
The Houston area has the largest African-American community in Texas and one of the top 10 in the nation.