This place Sam Houston Park is one of the best and exciting get aways in the city of Houston. The historic homes are simply amazing. Being in the pacific area of Jack Yates and others preserved homes, take your mind back into the yesteryear. This particular park is in a nearby tranquil and remote area very close to our downtown library. Their is one Confederate monument nestled way back in a corner area. With that being said, let me say I am a black male who cherishes history (without knowing where we have been, how can I know where we are going) with a passion. Flying Confederate flags over & displaying monuments on federal, state and local governments buildings sites,...I disagree. But as far as people having these flags and relics in there vichles and on their private properties...is their business. Due to these things being part of their heritage, does this make them out to be bad individuals or should one hate the memories of their great, great, greater grandfather for being a Confederate Soldier? NO IT DOESN'T! SOME OF THE BEST PEOPLE I HAVE MET IN LIFE HAD CONFEDERATE MEMORABILIA. When anything is used out of proportion it can create problems. As I lean back toward this park, I propose that all monuments of The Confederacy that has been removed from public lands should be placed in a place to preserve history. We don't want to relive history but, however, we don't need to destroy it. Put the areas of the Heritage Society in Houston Texas on your place to visit list. You...
Read moreTook the black history tour at this place & was thoroughly disappointed with the presentation of everything. The tour consisted of the Kellum-Noble house which was a former slave plantation & had nothing to do with Freedmen History. Then we went over to the house of Jack Yates & the tour guide left out important history about Mr Yates’s life & went on about him being a pastor & admired his resilience, but never mentioned his community advocacy or how he & 10 other Freedmen purchased the land where Emancipation Park currently sits & given the fact that the Freedmen’s Bureau was decimated by malfeasance & banks were stolen from as well as Freedmen having their life savings taken away, I’d say Mr Yates is a Freedmen king especially since he opened a school for Freedmen in a time during segregation. Then at the end, we got to the Fourth Ward cottage which was owned by a rich German man who leased it out to several Freedmen & I didn’t get what this actually had to do with black history. It showed the entire white savior & hero thing to dilute the horrors of slavery & Jim Crow as well as paints Freedmen as a weak & helpless group. If you are a Freedmen & know your history I’d say still take the tour & expose the lies. Freedmen Town was also sabotaged & wrecked by gentrification, this tour is...
Read moreCame with a small group of friends and a baby to visit the museum and do the walking tour. It’s very reasonably priced at $15/person. The actual museum has a small fake grocery store and very small exhibit of the rodeo and JFK which was somewhat underwhelming.
The walking tour of three houses was in BlCk History Pre and Post Emancipation and was the best tour I have ever been on. Our tour guide, Cian, is not your average bored volunteer or teenager. He is an actual researcher doing archival work and focused on telling the story of Houston through enslaved people’s eyes. He is a wealth of knowledge and our fellow tour participants provided great perspective as well on the value of Juneteenth to them, etc.
Highly recommend the tour - actual museum was so so. The museum relies on volunteers and grants and really needs further public support to continue its mission.
Parking is easy and it’s a UNESCO...
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