Charonda Johnson was born in 1977, the same year filmmaker James Blue released “Who Killed Fourth Ward?,” a documentary warning that Houston’s oldest African American neighborhood had already been marked for erasure.
Nearly five decades later, Johnson, whose family has called Freedmen’s Town home for five generations, stood in the community her ancestors built and delivered a verdict of her own.
“The plan to take my community had already formed before I was born,” she said. “And the fact that we are still here in 2026, planning and programming, for me, it is the ultimate blessing.”
On May 31, the Houston Freedmen’s Town Conservancy (HFTC) and the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (CAMH) will hold a community groundbreaking at Mount Horeb Missionary Baptist Church, 1108 Victor St., launching Phase Two of Rebirth in Action, a multi-year initiative to preserve, protect, and revitalize one of the most historically significant Black communities in the United States.
“It says this community, the oldest African American settlement in Houston post-Civil War, deserves the kind of attention it’s getting. And it invites people in, so they are not just spectators but co-owners of this transformative work.”
Sharon Fletcher, executive director of the Houston Freedmen’s Town Conservancy
The ceremony marks the start of construction on a new pavilion designed by artist and cultural strategist Theaster Gates and the rehabilitation of three historic row houses that will house a food pantry, after-school programming, and senior services. A spring 2027 opening is anticipated.
A community built on freedom
Founded in 1865 by free men and women in the years following Juneteenth, Freedmen’s Town grew from a tent settlement on the south banks of Buffalo Bayou into what residents call Houston’s “Mother Ward.” By the 1930s, more than 400 Black-owned businesses lined its streets. More than half of those original structures have since been lost to gentrification, new development, and the Interstate 45 corridor built through the neighborhood in the late 1940s and 1950s.
Sharon Fletcher, executive director of the Houston Freedmen’s Town Conservancy, said the groundbreaking signals years of advocacy.
“It says this community, the oldest African American settlement in Houston post-Civil War, deserves the kind of attention it’s getting,” Fletcher said. “And it invites people in, so they are not just spectators but co-owners of this transformative work.”
Phase Two encompasses the rehabilitation of three row houses, one as a community pantry, one as a gathering space for youth programming, and one for senior services, alongside a new open-air pavilion. A third phase covering the full restoration of the neighborhood’s historic brick streets is expected to begin in spring 2028.
community soon. Credit: Hailey Reyes
Central to the entire effort are those bricks. Since February 2025, HFTC has cataloged and preserved more than 20,000 historic bricks hand-laid by Freedmen’s Town residents more than a century ago. Fletcher said the bricks are expected to return in June, in honor of Juneteenth, and will ultimately be reinstalled on Andrews and Wilson streets. The brick street project is expected to go before the Houston City Council in July or August 2026.
Ryan N. Dennis, co-director and chief curator of CAMH, said the museum’s role reflects what arts institutions are uniquely built to do. “Museums have a unique opportunity to unpack social, cultural, and socio-political questions with artists in dynamic ways,” she said. “There is a need to ensure we can understand what our path was to look forward to the future.”
Five generations, One fight
Johnson, known as the “Mayor of Freedmen’s Town” and community engagement lead for the HFTC and CAMH partnership, has spent years correcting a narrative she says distorted the neighborhood’s history for generations.
“When I was younger, we were told the slaves did this, and the slaves did that,” she said. “And then to grow up and find out that there is no slave narrative here in Freedmen’s Town, everything that happened here was done by free men and women.”
Johnson said this project has a structural safeguard. The block is owned by Mount Horeb Missionary Baptist Church, with revenues flowing back into the congregation and community. Her next goal is to bring back legacy families pushed out by decades of urban renewal and gentrification.
“None of these are my ideas. I’m just carrying the torch,” Johnson said. “We have elders who have been fighting this fight for 50 years. I want them to see this before they go to glory. And the fact that it is happening, it is the ultimate blessing.”
