Home of Rutherford B.H. Yates

The home of Rutherford B.H. Yates was built in 1912 and lies in the historical neighborhood in the Fourth Ward of Houston previously known as Freedmen’s Town. Freedmen’s Town was established in the year 1865 and served the purpose of housing emancipated slaves from surrounding plantations in Texas and Louisiana after the Civil War. Rutherford, like his father Reverend Jack who built the home they lived in, served as symbols for the Black community. Their services consisted of printing, educating, religous preaching, and expressing civil rights concerns throughout the Fourth Ward Community. Unfortunately, a majority of Freedmen’s Town was lost due to industrialization and new development in the Houston Area. Preservation groups made a case to have this area of Houston declared a historical site in attempts to keep hold of the remaining original homes, businesses, and churches of Houston’s first African American neighborhood. 

Rutherford Birchard Hayes Yates was the founder of the first Black-owned printing press in the city of Houston. His father John was the first pastor of the Missionary Baptist Church founded in the year 1866, a church that primarily served freed slaves after the Civil War had come to an end. The Yates home is in Freedmen’s Town which is prominently known as the first independent Black neighborhood in Houston where many emancipated slaves of surrounding plantations in the South moved to preserve their newly acquired rightful liberties. John Yates was born in Virginia and was the child of two enslaved people. Yates moved to Houston to follow his wife who had to relocate because of her master, and after emancipation he built his own home in the 1870’s. Preserved by Rutherford Yates's daughter in 1996, his home is one of the last remaining original pieces of what Freedmen’s Town used to be in the now industrialized Fourth Ward sector of Houston. As a result, the generations that followed original emancipated residents of Freedmen’s Town had to move on from the neighborhood acquired as reparation for atrocities many of their ancestors had to endure. Nathan Rivet, a student historian studying political science discusses the limitations many African Americans faced in this segregated area of Houston when he states, “Meanwhile the original Freedman’s Town community was threated in the 1930s by the expansion of downtown Houston. Parts of the district were replaced by the new City Hall, the Albert Thomas Convention Center, the Gulf Freeway, the Allen Parkway Village, a public housing project.”[1]. Despite having almost thirty-six thousand residents by the year 1930, African American families of Houston’s Fourth Ward fell victim to segregation brought upon by the Houston City Planning Commission. In a place where African Americans were meant to experience economic and social prosperity due to the horrors they previously faced, Houstonian development used industrialization, and even the Second World War, as reasons to justify segregation and lessen opportunities for Houston's African Americans community. 

The historical significance of Freedmen’s Town lies in the efforts of its people to ensure its preservation. The now public museum that is the home of Rutherford B.H. Yates is a place all should visit to gain a better understanding of the hardships incorporated in the preservation of this sector in Houston history because it can shed light on past indiscretions and make room for a better tomorrow. The homepage of the RBHY Museum reiterates this in its description of Freedmen’s Town when it states, “But years of redevelopment pressure, misguided planning efforts and indifference have taken their toll; much has been lost, and what remains is still threatened. For a quarter century, we have been hard at work lifting up this historic place and telling its story.”[2] The historical significance of Freedmen’s Town lies in its name and what it once stood for. Make no mistake, Freedmen’s Town is not just a landmark because it is the first African American community in Houston, it is because of what the African Americans did with their newly acquired freedoms by developing a spiritual, cultural, and business district for Houston’s African American community. Besides historical significance, Freedmen’s Town has many unique qualities of architecture associated with Jim Crow Laws and was home to the first Black businesses, schools, and libraries available to African Americans of Houston. Though the idea of segregating schools and libraries is cruel, its remembrance is significant in telling the story of Freedmen’s Town and the racism African Americans faced even after emancipation. Though Freedmen’s Town was declared a historical site in the year 1984, it was the properties within Freedmen’s Town that presented a challenge regarding preservation. The home of Rutherford B.H. Yates for example, was not commissioned a Houston Landmark until late November of 1996. In an application sent to the Texas Historical Commission in hopes of achieving a historic marker, the author emphasizes the historical significance behind Freedmen’s Town and its unique architecture when they state, “The neighborhood is composed of wood frame houses, primarily cottages and shotguns dated from 1870 to 1935. Since 1940 the area is being reduced by Urban Renewal. Fourth Ward’s history is as fascinating as the history of Houston with its glistening skyscrapers.”[3]. 

As previously mentioned, the demographic shifts and ideologies associated with African Americans play a vital role in developmental seekers justifying their disregard for Houston’s Black community. Take this newspaper article by The Galveston News as an example. Published in the year 1868 just three years after emancipation with a headline titled “The War of Races in Texas.” This article vilifies African Americans and presents them as dangerous to the public, and the people who could afford to buy and read these newspapers were the consumers of an unjust report on an event they declared a “mob of negroes”. It even discusses a surplus of two hundred white volunteers to hunt down and kill one Black man. The author of the article continues to incriminate people of color after displaying a heroic theme toward two hundred vigilantes when he states, “negroes threaten the women and children of Millican.”.[4]

What was once a thriving neighborhood for African Americans has now become one of the poorest neighborhoods in Houston. Carol McDavid, a Houstonian with a Master’s degree from the Department of Anthropology at the University of Houston, argues that this is a result of gentrification in the neighborhood and discusses that current residents use media and political activism to reject the preservation of Freedmen’s Town in light of traditional stereotypes regarding poverty, race, and class. McDavid emphasizes public discourse in the form of stereotypes and how property owners, developers, and even local government put them in effect when she exclaims, “The most commonly expressed stereotype, by far, is that poverty equals drugs and crime, and that extreme poverty plus Black people equals more drugs and crime. Ergo, according to some, Freedmen’s Town equals drugs and crime.”[5] Houston planning committees deployed stereotypes and then used these stereotypes as justification to disregard African Americans. The disregard for the original residents of this historic neighborhood is apparent and the idea of growth is said to be for the good of the future, even though it has put African Americans of Freedmen’s Town through troubling times. Sam Howe Verhovek, a writer for the New York Times emphasizes this in his article regarding Freedmen’s Town when he states, “the sweeping plans of the city and private developers for “renewal” and “renaissance” in the Fourth Ward are not welcome news... the longtime residents are threatened by the planned residential development.”[6] . Original residents have been forced to leave Freedmen’s Town due to the rents that have risen to twice of what they used to pay. By the year 1998, people from thirty different properties had been evicted. Nathaniel Davis, born in the year 1936 recalls Freedmen’s Town as a young boy in an oral history interview conducted by the Gregory School which was the first African American elementary school in Houston. Davis discusses many of the former businesses he grew to love that have since been demolished due to the urbanization of his neighborhood. He states, “I remember going to the Rainbow theatre, and also House street, which is long gone.”[7] The banks where Davis used to play as a child have now become expensive homes. Growing up in the Fourth Ward of Houston held many great memories for residents like Mr. Davis, and they were hurt to see the places they once loved turn into condominiums and expensive housing resulting in their relocation due to their unaffordability. 

Freedmen’s Town deserves acknowledgment for its historical significance just like any other historical site in Houston. It is home to the first free African Americans of Houston and surrounding areas. It is home to the first owned Black printing press and churches. The culture that lies within the walls of Freedmen’s Town is something some people have chosen to overlook, but with efforts of preservation the process of making certain areas of Freedmen’s Town landmarks permanent have been in play since the mid nineteen hundred resulting in some failures and some success. It would be beneficial for all Houstonians to visit this historical site in hopes to better their understanding of the hardships African Americans had to endure and the amazing things they contrived with their acquired liberties after the end of the Civil War, a turning point in the nation. 

[1] Nathan Rivet, “Freedmen’s Town, Houston, Texas (1865-), Blackpast.org (2014). 

[2] RBHY.org 

[3] Texas Historical Commission. [Historic Marker Application: Rutherford B.H. Yates Sr, House] May 16,2000., 3. 

[4] Spencer, A. W., and the Galveston News, “The War of Races in Texas.” Milwaukee Daily Sentinel, July 28, 1868. Nineteenth Century Newspapers.

[5] McDavid Carol, “When is “Gone” Gone? Archaeology, Gentrification, and Competing Narratives about Freedmen’s Town, Houston”, Historical Archeology vol.45 no.3, (82). 

[6] Verhovek Sam, “Historic Houston Neighborhood Falls to Renewal.” The New York Times,1998. 

[7] Davis, Nathaniel. Oh-GS-0005, Castellanos, Nicolas. (Gregory School Oral Histories),2010. 

Work Cited

1.     Davis, Nathaniel. OH-GS-0005, Castellanos, Nicolas.  (Gregory School Oral Histories), 2010. 

2.     McDavid, Carol. “When is “Gone” Gone? Archaeology, Gentrification, and Competing Narratives about Freedmen’s Town, Houston”, Historical Archeology vol.45 no.3.

3.     Rivet, Nathan. “Freedmen’s Town, Houston, Texas (1865-).” Blackpast.org (2017)

4.     RBHY.org

5.     SAM, HOWE VERHOVEK. "Historic Houston Neighborhood Falls to Renewal." New York Times, Mar 15, 1998. 

6.      Spencer, A. W., and the Galveston News, July 17. "The War of Races in Texas."   Milwaukee Daily Sentinel, July 28, 1868. Nineteenth Century U.S. Newspapers

7.     Texas Historical Commission. [Historic Marker Application: Rutherford B. H. Yates, Sr., House], text, May 16, 2000.