Volume 30 Issue 7

March 7, 2025

GREATER HOUSTON EDITION

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Vol.30, Issue 7

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African-American News&Issues

“Addressing Current & Historical Realities Affecting Our Community”

HOUSTON Former state representative Shawn Thierry has been appointed as the executive director of for policy and counsel at her alma mater Texas Southern University.

ALDINE Aldine ISD board votes to close 6 elementary schools to cut cost due to declining enrollment.

DALLAS An organization is documenting and preserving Black history in Dallas’ Tenth Street Historic District, one of the last intact Freedmen’s Towns.

They will uncover stories and mapping unmarked graves.

PRAIRIE VIEW PVAMU reaffirmed as prestigious high research R2 designated institution under new Carnegie Classification standards.

FORT WORTH

REMEMBERING SYLVESTER TURNER SEPT 27, 1954 – MAR 5, 2025

By: Chloé Richards

Acres Home native Sylvester Turner went from labor to reward on Wednesday, March 5th, 2025, he was 70 years old. He diligently served the Houston community in various capacities for over 40 years. His impact last not only in politics but in the lives of everyone he served, he was more than a politician but a light of hope, a problem solver, and a voice for the people. He led Houston through historic Hurricane Harvey and a global pandemic, he fiercely advocated for underserved communities and became the driving force for impactful economic development

initiatives. He will always be remembered as one of Houston’s most transformative leaders.

Turner was born on September 27th, 1954, in Houston, TX to Eddie and Ruby Mae Turner; he was the sixth of nine children. He graduated from Klein High School in Klein ISD, at the time it was an all-white school and Turner was bussed there due to desegregation efforts, he graduated as valedictorian and went on to attend college at The University of Houston (UH). He graduated Turner on pg. 3 from UH magna cum laude

Tubman Gallery in East Fort Worth imagines a Black future. “I See the Future Its Black” is the latest exhibition. It shows blackness not just as a color, but as a space of endless possibility, waiting to be filled with new ideas, narratives and possibilities.

AUSTIN Black owned Austin bookstore, Black Pearl Books wants to make sure all books that were banned in Texas school districts are accessible for everyone.

There is a “banned books” section, in their storefront.

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EDITORIAL

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SYLVESTER TURNER: A CIVIL SERVANT

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GREATER HOUSTON EDITION

An individual’s gifts will always make room for them and will bring them into the presence of greatness. Congressman Sylvester Turner has been in the presence of greatness. Sylvester grew up in the Acres Home community, the sixth child of nine siblings, and because of family size Congressman Turner’s family had to take turns eating at the table. Jokingly Sylvester says his father would always say: “don’t stay at the table too long”. Learning to share is an important part of family life, as well as communal life in general. Sylvester graduated from the University of Houston and Harvard Law School.

Sylvester ran for Mayor on two unsuccessful prior occasions (1991) and (2003) before being elected in 2016 and serving two four-year terms.

Sylvester Turner was the second Black Mayor of Houston, and Lee P. Brown was the first.

In November 2022, Sylvester Turner was diagnosed with bone cancer. Even though Congressman Turner was suffering with untold excruciating pain and emotional stress, he continued to serve as best he could through all the pain and suffering. In doing so, if there are those who felt that Sylvester Turner made administrative leadership missteps charge it to the pain and suffering, not his spiritual heart.

This memorial editorial tribute is simply about a man who transcended the birth of his family and neighborhood environmental conditions, obtained a high-quality education, and became the mayor of the great city of Houston, and elected as the congressman from the 18th congressional district in 2024.

Therefore, it is our Christian duty and Godly responsibility to say thanks for your faithful service, and we spiritually liftup your life of public service, and your family in faithful prayer before the throne of a loving and forgiving God. Now the people of the city of Houston and the citizens of the Great State of Texas say: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.” (Acts 16: 31). As Christians, we honored one another because all of us are created in the image of God, just a little lower than the angels. Therefore, we should always forgive and show love towards one another: “Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honour preferring one another: not slothful in business; fervent in spirit, serving the Lord: rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation: continuing instant in prayer; distributing to the necessity of saints; given to hospitality.”

(Romans 12: 10-13). All Texans, especially Houstonians regardless of race, color, or creed it is not for us to judge.

God is the final judge, but it is ours to forgive and spiritually understand, because this scripture says it all: “Get wisdom, get understanding: forget it not, neither decline from the words of my mouth.

Read more at Forsake her not, aframnews.com

Coping, Creating, Conquering

By Chloé Richards

SLAVERY IS A CRUTCH They tell us to “get over” slavery. That it’s in the past.

That we’re using it as a crutch.

But here’s the truth: slavery is a crutch, just not for us. It’s a crutch for the very systems that still benefit from our oppression. A crutch for the people who refuse to acknowledge that 400 years of brutality didn’t just disappear because President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. A crutch for the idea that we should be satisfied with nothing, while America still owes us everything.

Every Black person in this country deserves their 40 acres and a mule. Deserves reparations, pensions, and restitution for generations of unpaid labor, stolen wealth, and systemic destruction.

Slavery wasn’t just physical, it was psychological, embedding a trauma that never got the chance to heal. And that trauma? It has been passed down like an unwanted inheritance.

It’s in the way that Black children have been raised, in the fear we’ve been taught to

carry, in the habits were never questioned. The whooping’s that were normalized? That’s not just discipline; it’s a legacy of slave masters using pain to control. The generational anxiety about stepping out of line, playing it safe, not speaking too loudly? That’s survival mode, passed down from people who had no choice but to obey.

But our generation is choosing. Choosing to unlearn.

Choosing to break the curse.

And the thing about unlearning is that it makes people uncomfortable. It forces conversations that disrupt relationships. It exposes the ways we’ve been harming ourselves just to keep the peace. And most of all, it demands accountability, from us, from our families, and from a country that still refuses to pay its debts.

Slavery is a crutch, but not for Black people. It’s a crutch for those who want to ignore the damage, silence the truth, and move on without making things right. But we’re done carrying that weight. We deserve better. And whether they like it or not, we’re going to take it.

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GREATER HOUSTON EDITION Turner Cont.

with a Bachelor of Arts in political science in 1976.

He then went on to attend Harvard Law School where he graduated with a Juris Doctor degree in 1980.

After completing law school, Turner returned to Houston and worked at Fulbright and Jaworski law firm. Three years later in 1983 he founded his own law firm, Barnes and Turner he specialized in corporate and commercial law as well as working as an immigration lawyer. He also served the community by teaching at three law schools in Houston. He was an adjunct professor at Texas Southern University: Thurgood Marshall School of Law and a seminar lecturer at South Texas College of Law and the University of Houston Law School’s Continuing Legal Education Programs.

A year after starting his law firm, Turner began his political pursuits he ran for Harris County Commissioner, Precinct 1 in the Democratic primary but fell short against EL Franco Lee. In 1988, he was elected to the Texas House of Representatives in House District 139 which services parts of northwestern Houston in Harris County, he remained in this position until 2014. He ran for Mayor a few times in Houston before he was

March 7, 2025 successful. Initially running in 1991, he lost the runoff election to Bob Lanier who was mayor of Houston from 1992 to 1998. He lost again in 2003, coming in third place which disqualified him from the runoff election.

Turner served 26 years in the Texas House of Representatives, during his tenure he served as a member of the Legislative Budget Board, Vice-Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, Chairman of the Subcommittee of Articles 1, 4 & 5 (General Government, Judiciary, Public Safety & Criminal Justice) and the House State Affairs Committee. He also chaired the Texas Legislative Black Caucus and the Greater Houston Area Legislative Delegation. In 2015, Turner won the runoff election defeating Bill King by over 4,000 votes. In 2019, he won his second term as mayor over Tony Buzbee. In 2024, after the death of former Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, Turner was elected in November 2024 to fill her congressional seat and took office in January 2025 he served 60 days in congress before his death.

Turner’s political career was defined by his commitment to progressive policies and community focused leadership. He wanted stricter laws

ROY DOUGLAS MALONSON (PUBLISHER) AND SYLVESTER TURNER

regarding rideshare services (Uber & Lyft), In 2016, Texas led the country in drunk driving fatalities. He was also supporter of LBTQAI+ rights and initiatives, stating that over the years his views had “evolved” surrounding LBTQAI+. He was also a longtime supporter of abortion rights. He was a vocal supporter of public education advocating for increased funding and initiatives to improve access for underserved communities. He opposed policies targeting undocumented residents and worked to make Houston a more inclusive city. He focused on expanding access to healthcare for low-income communities and promoting public health initiatives. He also prioritized reducing incarceration rates for nonviolent offenses. One of his most significant efforts was addressing homelessness through a housing-first approach, expanding resources for mental health services, and creating initiatives to provide long term solutions for those in need.

In November 2022, Turner disclosed that he had been diagnosed with bone cancer, for which he had surgery and received 6 weeks of radiation treatment. He is the only member of the 119th Congress to die in office and the second representative for Texas’s 18th district to die in a one-year period,

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after Sheila Jackson Lee. Houston’s mayor John Whitmire announced the death of Turner saying he was “A remarkable public servant who impacted millions of people. He rose from poverty but never forgot where he came from.

It is a terrible loss for the city and a personal loss for me. I ask Houstonians to celebrate his life.” Whitmire ordered flags in the city to fly at half-staff in Turner’s memory. Texas governor Greg Abbott ordered flags across the state of Texas to fly at half-staff for Turner until sunrise on March 8, 2025.

Sylvester Turner’s life and legacy are a testament to resilience, leadership, and an unwavering commitment to public service. His diligence made the city of Houston and its people all the better.

Beyond politics, Turner’s impact was felt in the lives he touched, through mentorship, advocacy, and his relentless pursuit of progress. He led with intentionality and compassion always committing himself and his work to progress. As Houston moves forward, Turner’s influence will continue to be felt in the policies he shaped, the lives he touched, and the spirit of leadership he embodied. His vision for a stronger, more inclusive city lives on, reminding everyone that true leadership is measured not just in words, but in lasting change.

LEFT TO RIGHT: GAIL CAPTAIN (FRONT LEFT) JIMMIE CAPTAIN (BACK), ASHLEY TURNER CAPTAIN (BACK), SYLVESTER TURNER, ANIYA CAPTAIN (DAUGHTER), JAMESON CAPTAIN (SON), CHERYLTURNER (FRONT RIGHT

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March 7, 2025

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GREATER HOUSTON EDITION

THROUGH THE LENS OF TIME: BLACK HISTORY IS 24/7/365 1864

1955

1991

1877

1959

1857

March 1st, 1864- Rebecca Lee Crumpler became the first Black woman to earn a medical degree.

March 2nd, 1955Claudette Colvin, a 15-year-old Black woman was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white woman in Montgomery, Alabama.

March 3rd, 1991- Rodney King was severely beaten

by Los Angeles police officers.

March 4th, 1877- Garett Augustus Morgan was born on, he is best known for inventing the traffic signal and gas mask.

March 5th, 1959Twenty-One Black boys were burned to death after being locked in a segregated and neglected Arkansas “reform” school.

March 6th, 1857- The U.S. Supreme Court declared in Dred Scott v.

Sandford that: Any person descended from Africans, whether slave or free, is not a citizen of the United States, according to the Constitution.

BLACK HISTORY FUN FACTS - Leila Foley became the first Black woman to be elected mayor in the United States in 1973.

- William Tucker was the first known Black person to be born in the 13 colonies. He was born in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1624. His parents were indentured servants and part of the first group of Africans brought to colonial soil by Great Britain.

- Lucy Stanton became the first Black woman in America to earn a four-year college degree. She graduated from Oberlin College in 1850 with a literary degree.

- Martin Luther King, Jr. started as a freshman at Morehouse College at the age of 15.

1965 March 7th, 1965- “Bloody Sunday”, Alabama state police officers attacked unarmed civil rights marchers in Selma, Alabama. The march was for the 600 people who were attacked on the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

The officers used billy clubs and tear gas on the marchers.

“” PEOPLE I JUST WANT TO SAY, CAN WE ALL GET ALONG?

- Lila Fenwick was the first Black woman to graduate from Harvard Law School in 1956.

- Guion Bluford was the first Black person to go to space in 1983.

RODNEY KING

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March 7, 2025

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LOCAL

KRISTI RANGEL, ARTIST IN RESIDENCE FOR WITNESS SERIES: GROW WITH GRACE By: Shelley McKinley

Kristi Rangel, the 2025 Buffalo Bayou Partnership Artist in Residence, has expanded the Witness Series in green spaces from four parts that occurred in 2024 to an eight-part series for 2025 that will explore the many profound experiences that people of color have in Southeast Texas and along Houston’s Buffalo Bayou. Rangel created the Witness Series in partnership with Jaime González, a Houstonbased conservationist and storyteller because of their shared belief that environmental equity is a basic human right.

To kick off the 2025 Witness Series: ‘Grow with Grace’, Kristi Rangel recently facilitated the ‘Part 1: Empowered by Flowers’ panel discussion at Pilgrim Church Community Center which happens to sit alongside a portion of the Columbia Tap Trail, that was once a railroad line built by enslaved Black people to transport cotton and sugar. After Emancipation, the line was used to transport Black convict lease laborers to work plantations. Today it is a paved four-mile trail that connects neighborhoods in Third Ward.

The event opened with welcoming words from Michelle Barnes, the Executive Director and co-founder of the Com-

munity Artists’ Collective and a member of the 120-year-old Pilgrim Congregational United Church of Christ. “We have a very rich history that started in Freedman’s Town in Fourth Ward before moving to Third Ward,” shared Barnes.

Every ‘Witness’ encounter, such as Part 1, is designed to provide attendees with a participatory public art experience centered around green spaces and environmental equity. The panelists for Part 1 were Naomi Carrier, founder of Texas Center for African American Living History; Erandi Treviño, Co-founder of the Raices Collab Project; and Brittney Mayfield, an individual flora artist.

Rangel facilitated the discussion among the panelists, that centered on the intersections of land, labor, transportation, and flora.

“The so what of ‘Witness’ is to practice a concept of radical joy, and its radical because you are having joy while reclaiming green spaces inside of our Black and Brown communities even if they are neglected, underused, and not programmed. We are inviting people into spaces that they drive through or around, and asking them to go bare witness to others. Witness is a

high-touch, low-tech experience,” explained Rangel.

Naomi Carrier explained, “Texas’ economic development involves five independent variables: land, water, agriculture, labor, and the transportation.

The Columbia Tap Trail provided the transportation. I want you to know the importance of African American resources and labor in the development of Texas, generating millions and billions of dollars related to the transporting of sugar and cotton, and the building of railroads.” Later she used her story telling narration of a first-person account from a former convict lease laborer’s experience dreaming to escape from prison by hopping on a moving train.

‘Witness’ looks at what is harmful as well as what is beautiful and builds on the resilience found within the communities. As Erandi Treviño explained, “Even though I am an immigrant this is my ancestral land, and I am hyper aware of industrial activity and pollution.

That is true for many people who are low-income and many people of color who are living within miles of oil and gas operations. It affects our lives. It makes us

sick. Yet, flowers and nature are beautiful.”

Brittney Mayfield led the participants through a flower workshop after the panel discussion. As she explained, flowers are given for births, deaths, graduations, church services, and other occasions. Flowers symbolize sentiments.

“After my last pregnancy, flowers kept me alive, essentially,” shared Mayfield. During the flower workshop, attendees had the opportunity to choose three types of flowers among roses, eucalyptus, asparagus fern, chamomiles, and baby’s breath to build their own bouquets.

The bouquets could be left at the memorial

placard for Kirk Jackson, who transformed a vacant lot across from Texas Southern University into the Blodgett Urban Garden. As it is stated on the placard, his commitment to equitable access for urban farming and fresh produce reflected his ancestral roots in sharecropping and sugarcane farming.

Attendees could also choose to

leave them along the Columbia Tap Trail or take them home. Additionally, members of the Houston Audubon provided binoculars for attendees to view common birds found during the spring migration while walking the Columbia Tap Trail.

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LEFT TO RIGHT: KRISTI RANGEL, HENDRIX KING

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HISTORY

WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH By: Chloé Richards

Every March, we take time to honor women’s contributions to history, culture, and society. But have you ever wondered why Women’s History Month happens in March? Or why we even celebrate it at all?

The idea of celebrating women’s history wasn’t always around. In fact, for most of history, women’s achievements were overlooked or erased. But in the 1970s, a group of women in California decided that needed to change.

In 1978, the Education Task Force of the Sonoma County Commission on the Status of Women organized the first Women’s History Week. They chose to hold it in March to include International Women’s Day on March 8 a day that had been recognized around the world since 1911. The idea caught on, and in 1980, President Jimmy Carter declared the first official National Women’s History Week. Seven years later, in 1987, Congress expanded the celebration to a whole month. Now, every March, we recognize the contributions of women who have shaped history, often without receiving the credit they deserve.

Women’s History Month is a time to celebrate all women, but Black women’s contributions are often left out

of the story. There are some incredible Black women who made history but aren’t always talked about in school.

Claudia Jones was born in Trinidad but moved to the United States as a child. She was smart and outspoken, and she quickly became a leader in the fight for racial and gender equality.

However, because of her activism, the U.S. government saw her as a threat and deported her to England. Instead of giving up, she started The West Indian Gazette, the first major Black newspaper in Britain.

She also helped organize what would later become London’s Notting Hill Carnival, a celebration of Caribbean culture that still happens today.

Bessie Stringfield became the first Black woman to ride solo across the country on a motorcycle. She even worked as a military dispatch rider during World War II, delivering important messages on her bike. Dorothy Bolden worked as a housekeeper for white families in Atlanta, Georgia, starting when she was just nine years old. She saw firsthand how unfairly

Black domestic workers were treated. Instead of staying silent, she started talking to other women who worked as maids and nannies. In the 1960s, she founded the National Domestic Workers Union of America, helping thousands of Black women fight for better wages and working conditions.

Alice Coachman grew up in Georgia at a time when Black athletes had very few opportunities.

But

that didn’t stop her.

She trained by running barefoot and jumping over makeshift hurdles.

In 1948, she became the first Black woman to win an Olympic gold medal when she dominated the high jump competition in London. Her victory paved the way for Black female athletes like Serena Williams and Simone Biles. Ellen Craft was born

into slavery, but she refused to stay that way. In 1848, she and her husband, William, came up with a daring plan to escape. Ellen, who had light skin, disguised herself as a wealthy white man, and William pretended to be her enslaved servant.

They traveled openly by train and steamboat, with Ellen wearing a suit and pretending she was injured so no one would expect her to speak.

Their escape worked, and they later became famous abolitionists, speaking out against slavery.

These women—and so many more—

helped shape history, yet their stories are often overlooked. Women’s History Month isn’t just about remembering famous names like Harriet Tubman and Rosa Parks (though they are important too!).

It’s about making sure all women’s stories are told, especially those who were ignored for too long. So, this March, take a moment to learn about a woman in history you’ve never heard of before. You might be surprised by how much she changed the world.

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