Fourth Ward is one of the historic six wards of Houston, Texas, United States. The Fourth Ward is located inside the 610 Loop directly west of and adjacent to Downtown Houston. The Fourth Ward is the site of Freedmen's Town, which was a post-U.S. Civil War community of African-Americans.
History
Early history
The Fourth Ward was established as one of four wards by the City of Houston in 1839. By 1906 it included much of what is, as of 2008, Downtown and Neartown; at that point the city stopped using the ward system.Ellison, David. "A NEIGHBORHOOD IN FLUX / Over the past decade, Houston’s historic Fourth Ward has undergone an uneasy transformation. Now, longtime residents and newcomers alike wonder what happens next. / The fight for the Fourth." Houston Chronicle. Sunday January 21, 2007. B1 MetFront. Retrieved on July 25, 2012.
The area was the site of Freedman's Town, composed of recently freed slaves. The first freed slaves departed the Brazos River cotton plantations in 1866 and entered Houston via San Felipe Road (now named West Dallas in the portion from Downtown Houston to Shepherd Drive). The slaves settled on the Buffalo Bayou's southern edge, constructing small shanties as houses. Brush arbors along the bayou and borrowed churches were used as houses of worship. Several more ex-slaves leaving plantations arrived in Freedmen's Town. One brush arbor ultimately became the Antioch Missionary Baptist Church, the church where Jack Yates served as pastor. Yates and his son, Rutherford Yates, became major community leaders in the early days of the Fourth Ward.Snyder, Mike. "With its rich history, Fourth Ward is strong in symbolism." Houston Chronicle. Sunday January 9, 2000. A24. Retrieved on July 28, 2012. - Available from the Houston Public Library newspaper collection , accessible with a library card number and password. The neighborhood became the center of Houston's African-American community in the late 19th century and early 20th century.
The 1,000 freed slaves who settled the community selected the site along the southern edge of the Buffalo Bayou since the land was inexpensive and because White Americans did not want to settle on the land, which was swampy and prone to flooding. The settlers of Freedmen's Town paved the streets with bricks that they hand-made themselves."History of the Gregory School and Freedmen's Town." African American Library at the Gregory School. Retrieved on December 11, 2009. An oral tradition said that in the early 20th century, members of the congregation of the Reverend Jeremiah Smith paved Andrew Street with the first bricks after the City of Houston refused to pave it. Yates, Smith, and Ned P. Pullum were three of the major Fourth Ward area ministers. The residents provided their own services and utilities. Residents included blacksmiths, brickmakers, doctors, haberdashers, lawyers, and teachers.
From 1905 through the 1940s, the Freedman's Town area included what was Houston's largest baseball venue through 1927, West End Park. It was home to the city's Minor League baseball team, the Houston Buffaloes, and it was the city's first venue for Negro Major League games.
At the turn of the century, black ministers established businesses and churches and remained as community leaders. During the same period, Italian Americans moved into the Fourth Ward, including Freedmen's Town. The Italian Americans opened small businesses and, over a period of time, acquired more and more Fourth Ward property. Many had extended mercantile credit to customers, and seized property from the customers after they failed to pay off their debts. Their descendants, as of the year 2000, continued to be the owners of many residences in the Fourth Ward.
In 1909, African Americans organized a library at Booker T. Washington High School. They were prohibited from accessing Houston's Lyceum and public library. In 1912 the Carnegie Colored Library of Houston was dedicated. It was demolished in 1962 when Interstate 45 was constructed through the Fourth Ward.
As more and more families moved in, the neighborhood increasingly became crowded. A narrative that accompanied the 1984 application of the Fourth Ward to become listed in the National Register of Historic Places, based on various historical documents and deed records, said that the crowded conditions and high rent prices may have led to a riot in 1917 when African-American soldiers stationed in the area attacked White people. By the 1920s and 1930s the population density of Freedmen's Town was almost six times that of the average of the entire City of Houston.
In the 1920s the Third Ward surpassed the Fourth Ward as the center of Houston's African-American community.
Decline The Fourth Ward lost prominence due to its inability to expand geographically, as other developments hemmed in the area. Mike Snyder of the Houston Chronicle said that local historians traced the earliest signs of decline to 1940, and that it was influenced by many factors, including the opening of Interstate 45 and the construction of Allen Parkway Village, a public housing complex of the Housing Authority of the City of Houston or HACH (now Houston Housing Authority) that opened in the 1940s."Study Area 11 ." City of Houston. Accessed October 21, 2008. Located on the north side of the Fourth Ward, it originally was an all-White development that had the name San Felipe Courts.
The opening of Interstate 45 in the 1950s separated an eastern portion of the Fourth Ward area from the community; that portion became the Allen Center business and hotel complex and is now considered to be a part of Downtown Houston."Best Event That No One Thought Would Ever Happen." Houston Press. Accessed October 23, 2008 The freeway also severed the community's connection with Downtown itself. After the civil rights reforms of the 1960s, black homeowners began leaving the Fourth Ward, leading to further decline.
The freeway construction and urban renewal programs led to the loss of portions of the community.Buntin, John. "Land Rush." Governing. March 2006. Retrieved on July 3, 2011.
Redevelopment By the 1970s many of the original Fourth Ward residents left to go to other communities. Crime and the prevalence of crack cocaine became issues affecting the community. Starting in the 1970s the City of Houston wanted to demolish Allen Parkway Village while residents fought to have the entire structure remain. Plans to replace the Fourth Ward with condominiums and a park date to that decade. John Nova Lomax of the Houston Press said that the Fourth Ward had been "embattled" due to its proximity to Downtown Houston and that "Developers have long seen the area's brick streets and ramshackle, century-old shotgun shacks as an inexcusable, poverty-stricken, drug- and crime-infested blot on the landscape of otherwise prosperous Westside, Inner Loop Houston."Lomax, John Nova. "O'Brien's Song." Houston Press. December 8, 2009 3. Retrieved on July 2, 2011.
The Handbook of Texas said "In the 1980s and 1990s the continued future of the Fourth Ward as a black community came under serious attack" due to plans to demolish Allen Parkway Village and replace the complex with housing for high income people and office buildings. The Handbook of Texas said that citizen opposition and "more importantly" the mid-1980s economic decline delayed those plans. The Handbook of Texas said that the neglect of the housing units and the resulting disappearance of those units, the reluctance of investors to invest capital into the Fourth Ward, and "future of the neighborhood" all "undermined" "[t]he viability" of the Fourth Ward.Wintz, Cary. “Fourth Ward, Houston.” The Handbook of Texas Online. 26 Sept 2008. < https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/hpf01> On January 17, 1985, Freedmen's Town was added to the National Register of Historic Places list.Ellison, David. "Houston wants to help save Fourth Ward homes." Houston Chronicle. Friday June 1, 2007. Retrieved on July 14, 2012. Because it was placed on the register, federal redevelopment funds could no longer be used to demolish structures.Barton, Chris and T.J. Milling. "Arson suspected in Fourth Ward/Fires in Fourth Ward heat up arson probe." Houston Chronicle. Friday August 2, 1991. A21. Retrieved on July 25, 2012.
On Tuesday May 21, 1991 several residents attending a community meeting told Dennis Storemski, then Deputy Chief of the Houston Police Department, that police officers routinely harassed community residents. The people attending the meeting accused police of extorting drug dealers, harassing and stealing from young people, and treating Fourth Ward residents with disrespect.Martin, Norma. "Harassment in 4th Ward alleged." Houston Chronicle. Wednesday May 22, 2011. A19. Retrieved on July 3, 2011. In the summer of 1991, beginning in May several fires occurred in the Fourth Ward, with three buildings affected in each 30-day interval. By August 1991 nine houses, all previously run-down, had been affected by the fires. Gladys House, former head of the Fourth Ward Freedmen's Town Association, and other area activists expressed a belief that the fires were arson intended to allow the owners of the houses to collect insurance money and facilitate redevelopment of the Fourth Ward. Similar fires that occurred during the previous winter were originally believed to have been started by vagrants trying to stay warm, but House said that suspicion increased when fires began occurring in the spring and summer. H.G. Torres, the assistant chief of the arson bureau of the Houston Fire Department, said that the timings of the fires made the bureau suspect arson. The association offered a $1,000 reward for information that resulted in the arrest of any suspect.
In the 1990s a former city planning commission member founded Houston Renaissance, a nonprofit private charity sustained by federal and municipal funds. The charity bought large portions of the community and announced plans to redevelop the parcels into affordable housing. Instead the charity defaulted and the Houston Housing Finance Corp. took control of the lands. The city divided the parcels to the east and the west. The city sold the parcels closest to Downtown Houston to private developers. The city used the acquired funds to develop the remaining parcels into subsidized houses, with each priced around $110,000.
The Houston Housing Authority (HHA), then known as Housing Authority of the City of Houston (HACH), made a unanimous vote to demolish Allen Parkway Village. This caused residents to begin a campaign to rescue the complex, including activist Lenwood Johnson. The legal campaign reached the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. In 1996 Henry Cisneros, the head of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, signed an agreement to allow the City of Houston to demolish 677 of the community's 963 units as long as the site was still used for low income housing. The remaining units have been placed on the National Register of Historic Places.O’Brien, Timothy. "Organizing lessons from Allen Parkway Village." San Francisco Bay View. September 17, 2009. Retrieved on July 3, 2011.