The coastal landscape offered a sanctuary where the rhythmic sounds of the waves were healing.

Director of Student Ministries for Galveston Urban Ministries I moved to Texas in 8th grade as an african american kid in a mostly white neighborhood. Early on I learned how to carry myself in a way that was “culturally appropriate,” which meant not being “too black”. I would slick back my hair with way too much gel and do my best to speak as politely as I could. Everyone seemed to accept me and would comment on how well I carried myself, usually with a hint of surprise. B

Not one, but two civil rights movements flourished in mid-twentieth century Texas, and they did so in intimate conversation with one another. Both Afircan Texans and Mexican Americans fought for their civil and political rights throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries right into the twenty-first happening now. While most research on American race relations has utilized a binary analytical lens—examining either "black" vs. "white" or "Anglo" vs. "Mexican"—the Civil Ri

A few weeks ago, hanging out at Hey Mikey’s ice cream parlor down on Postoffice, crowd-watching while occasionally making sure to dam the butter-pecan stream making its way down my sugar cone, I was struck by something I had always seen but never noticed. You know the routine, the one where you stand in line with bated breath waiting your turn to find out what’s down there in the freezer – the 20 or so colorful flavors with names running the gamut from the basic Vanilla to th

With March being Women’s History Month, it seems only fitting to preface our work towards racial equity in education by looking back on Black Women in Galveston’s history who laid the foundation for the future we know is possible. It is these women who in many ways give us permission to believe in something, and mean it. Izola Ethel Fedford Collins writes of many of these women in her book Island of Color: Where Juneteenth Started. Izola writes of Clara E. Scull, one of the f

Gregory Wilson is a long time Galvestonian who’s working at the heart of what he sees as one of the biggest issues facing his community: MENTORSHIP. A founding member of Ironman, a community-focused group offering father-figure guidance for children in Black communities through Turning Point Church, Wilson was able to draw upon his own struggles growing up in Galveston to become a focal point of the kind of change he wants to see in the city. Wilson took time to speak to Cult

Galveston was touted as the Ellis Island of the South, but can it be characterized as such today? Some BOIs say Hurricane Ike was the dividing point, or when our island’s community changed. After Ike devastated Galveston in September 2008, three public housing units on the north side of Broadway and west of 25th Street, where mostly black residents lived, were flooded and subsequently demolished. The rebuilding of the public housing projects was met with fierce (and racist) o

RACE, a four letter word that has so much power and depth. In this new decade, 2020, who would have thought that the color of one’s skin, one’s name, one’s religion, or one’s race would still effect how one is treated! Unfortunately, that is still the case. Despite living in a country where equality, justice, and freedom are the foundation of our constitution and government, people are being disrespected each day. It seems as though the ethos of humanity has been forgotten.