Scenes of the El Dorado Ballroom: 1962-1964
Benny A. Joseph (1924 – 2018) was an WWII Army veteran and one of four Black, professional photographers in Houston.…
Snapshots
Black History
Houston's Freedmen
The Gregory Institute: The Cornerstone of Houston’s Freedmen’s Town
The Gregory Institute was founded in 1870 and named after Union officer, Edgar Mantlebert Gregory. He was an outspoken abolitionist…
Uncovering Houston
Scenes of Camp Logan: 1917-1918
Fred Vermillion was a young photographer who got his “break” as the photographer for the Camp Logan military training facility.…
Uncovering Houston
A brief history of Houston’s segregated Mardi Gras: “No-Tsu-Oh” and “De-Ro-Loc No-Tsu Oh”
No-Tsu-Oh, Houston spelled backwards, was a city-wide festival that usually lasted for several days on end. People would bust out…
Snapshots
An unidentified Houston family
This is one of the rare moments where I would be down to time travel, but only if I could…
Business Directory Uncovering Houston
The Colored Carnegie Library
The Houston Public Library opened in 1895, allowing entry to “all users” for a small fee. Houston’s Black readers quickly…
Business Directory
The Rainbow Theatre
The Rainbow Theatre was once a popular theater located in Houston’s Freedmen’s Town. At the time, Houston was heavily segregated…
Uncovering Houston
TSU student protest @ the Harris County Courthouse
In April of 1967, tensions were brewing on the Texas Southern University (TSU) campus. Racially-motivated clashes between the TSU students,…