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Chapter Two. Building a City: Migrant Settlements in Houston, 1900–1941
- Texas A&M University Press
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Unlike mostTexas African Americans, Georgia Orviss and Joshua Houston Jr. grew up in prominent Huntsville families, far removed from the mudsills of East Texas poverty. Georgia Orviss, the multiracial daughter of a prominent biracial Virginia minister and a mixed-race mother—Rev. George B. and Mary Orviss—graduated from Mary Allen Seminary in Crockett, Texas, in the 1890s, ultimately becoming an educator. Joshua Houston’s father was a civic leader and business owner, Joshua Houston Sr. Once the literate slave of the legendary Sam Houston, he took his former master’s name following Emancipation and became the leading spokesperson for people of color in his community. He especially tailored his talks and ambitions toward young people, briefly opening Bishop Ward College for students. His offspring, not surprisingly, soared. Youngest son, Samuel Walker Houston, founded the community’s first African American high school, the Houstonian Normal Institute (later the Samuel Houston Industrial and Training School) in 1906. Joshua Houston Jr. also attended school for a period, enrolling in industrial education classes at Prairie View State and Industrial College (now Prairie View A&M University) and eventually opening his own blacksmithing shop (fig. 7).1 Initially, Joshua and Georgia Houston welcomed the idea of raising their daughters—Constance and Hortense—in Huntsville. Huntsville, in their estimation, seemed like a good place to bring up children—even African American children (fig. 8). Racism, according to the Houstons, would not stand in the way of their daughters’ success. Early on, they attempted to shield Constance and Hortense from racial bigotry. As the girls got older, the Houstons taught them to ignore taunts and racial epithets. Their parents educated them on the quiet but effective ways to resist bigotry. For example, civil rights and women’s rights supporter Georgia Houston, who two ~ Building a City Migrant Settlements in Houston, 1900–1941 Chapter Two 56 Figure 8. Although a blacksmith by training, Joshua Houston Jr., like many rural professionals , still farmed. Their home, on Avenue N and 13th Street, was located near downtown . Joshua and Georgia, a Huntsville schoolteacher and hairstylist, had three children. Constance Eloise Houston (Thompson), standing on the far right, was born in 1899; Maxine Elliot, born in 1902; and Hortense Cordelia, 1903. Only Constance and Hortense (standing next to father) survived infancy. Maxine died of cholera six months following her birth. Joshua’s wife Georgia stands in the background on the right side of the front porch. (Courtesy Houston Metropolitan Research Center, Houston Public Library, Houston, Texas, Joshua Houston Family Collection, MSS 0437-0012) also did beauty consulting in the White community, refrained from using her full name in the presence of Whites; she insisted that her White clients call her G. A. Houston instead. The Houstons wanted their daughters to know they had choices.2 Although Whites regularly demeaned children of color, the African American community always reinforced its loving role in the lives of the Houston girls. Strong familial bonds, their faith, and schooling, according to historian Naomi Ledé, afforded daughters Constance and Hortense Houston positive role models, confidence, and vision. Both girls attended their “Uncle Sam [’s]” high school, where they took domestic science classes as well as liberal arts courses. The Houstons also exposed their daughters to operas, classical music, and off-Broadway productions. Constance and Hortense Houston’s world differed from that of their peers in Huntsville and East Texas—both Black and White.3 The family’s successes and directives, nevertheless, obscured the pressures placed on middle-class African Americans to both prosper and remain [34.237.75.165] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 05:37 GMT) migrant settlements 57 subservient to Whites.4 The Houstons also worried about racial violence. “We moved to Houston because our mother became concerned—very concerned—after they took a man from the prison in Huntsville and lynched him.”5 The Houstons, frustrated with the town’s limitations and dangers, moved to Houston in 1918.6 Thinking of their daughters’ well-being, Joshua and Georgia Houston moved into a one-story home on Bayou Street in Fifth Ward (fig. 9). The Houstons prospered in Houston. Joshua opened his blacksmith shop on Lyons Avenue, the heart and soul of the Fifth Ward African American business district. Georgia Houston, a lifelong fraternal order member, taught school in Fifth Ward for four decades. Financially stable, Georgia Orvis Figure 9. Even with a prosperous blacksmith shop (perhaps his father’s), Joshua Houston Jr. made the decision to relocate the family to Houston during World War I...