Houston and the South (Take 1)

Last week, my parents and I took a road trip to Houston to help me look for an apartment and meet some of my organizing supervisors. Houston was hot, big, and vastly different from Detroit. Much of it was what I expected, but alot of it just blew my mind away. The parts that really shocked was the deep level of inequality that Blacks & Latinos live in as Texas "citizens" and the things that we as Detroiters take for granted. I got to visit one of the communities where I'll be organizing, Acre's Homes, which is the oldest Black neighborhood in Houston. There were no sidewalks in Acre's Homes and while the lay of the land looked like Detroit, with vacant lots and abandoned homes, it differed in that storm drains and other flood prevention methods were visibly exposed and placed with little concern to whether or not they worked. Houston also has no zoning laws for neighborhoods and the businesses that can operate in them. This means that next door to a single family dwelling is a mini grocery store based out of a home, next to a BBQ stand (sidenote: the BBQ at these joints is some of the best BBQ in the country).  I did about 4 one on one interviews during the time there and there is much much more to learn about Houston and the community I'll be working for.

Another thing that was pretty cool about this trip was the sites we visited along the way. We saw NASA and the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, which was outside of Houston.

We also took a detour to Little Rock, AR and got to see the William Jefferson Clinton Presidential Library and my friend Terrell, who was visiting family in Little Rock that weekend. Detroit can learn a few things from downtown Little Rock and its riverfront community. In Little Rock, the Civil Rights enthusiast in me HAD to go see Little Rock Central High School and the State Capital monument to the Little Rock Nine.

Lastly, we took a stop in Memphis and visited the National Civil Rights Museum at the Loraine Motel in Memphis. The Loraine Motel is the site where Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated in 1968 while in town for a garbage workers strike. This was probably one of my favorite tour sites ever, since earlier this year me and my friend Terrell stopped in the ATL to see the MLK boyhood home and Morehouse. While in Memphis we visited the Stax record company and museum, which during the 1960s was the SECOND best Black record company in America (the first being Motown, located in Detroit). I also got to sign the wall at Graceland (which is the home of Elvis Presley).

 Overall, it was a good trip. I found an apartment in the part of town that I wanted (not necessarily the apartment I wanted, but circumstances prevented that).  On the next go-around driving from Detroit to Houston, I'll visit the Muhammad Ali Museum in Louisville and a few sites I wanted to see in Nashville.