During their weekly choir rehearsal at the historic Fifth Ward community center, Lois Walker and a dozen or so other seniors stand next to the piano in the Julia C. Hester House’s music room as they sing the gospel hit “Search Me, Lord” by Donnie McClurkin.
With their voices echoing into the main hallway of Hester House and out the open door of the room, each member takes turns leading the group through various gospel interpretations.
Walker starts crying at one point. As her neighbor strokes her shoulder, she takes off her glasses to wipe away the tears, but she never stops singing.
The 75-year-old Fifth Ward native recently recovered from a medical emergency that sent her to the hospital for a short time.
As she sings with her classmates, thinking back on that experience only serves to highlight the reason she consented to participate in Hester House’s oral history project: to record her community’s memories and present the realities of her neighborhood while she still has the opportunity.
Everyone asks, “You live in that area?” when you mention the Fifth Ward. However, you are unaware of the past we have within our hearts, she remarked. And that’s what I want everyone, especially the younger generation, to understand.
Hester House, which provides social services, a wellness center, and activities for youngsters and senior citizens, has long been a cornerstone of the Fifth Ward community. However, its decades-long history has not been adequately preserved.
Hester House director Sherea McKenzie worries that the heritage of the community center may be lost forever if nothing is done.
In order to circumvent that, Hester House has collaborated on an oral history project with a group of instructors from Texas Southern University’s School of Communication. Numerous locals, primarily in their 70s to 90s, will be interviewed for a documentary film that will tell their experiences on the significance of Hester House to the Fifth Ward community as a whole.
Decades of history
In 1943, Hester House was first established as a settlement house, a community-based organization that offered recreational, educational, and other social services.
However, its origins are considerably older.
The community center bears the name of Julia C. Hester, a resident of the Fifth Ward who, from the turn of the century until her passing in 1940, gave her home to care for and educate local youngsters.
Initially, McKenzie intended to produce the documentary for the 80th anniversary of Hester House in 2023. However, TSU Professor Toniesha Taylor realized she would surpass that deadline once the interviews started.
“It can take a little longer than you think when you start interviewing people and they start telling you their stories,” Taylor, the department chair of TSU’s Department of Communication Arts and Sciences, said. It’s quite simple to persuade people to talk about their favorite things about a place when you’re discussing something so fundamental and deeply ingrained in their cultural experiences.
Taylor, one of the three TSU project leads, and professors Tyrone Dixon and Zantel Nichols first believed the study would just involve a few interviews, but it soon expanded.
For the project, Taylor and her crew conducted over 40 interviews and gathered dozens of hours of video.
Ten baseline questions were used in each session to elicit recollections.
According to Taylor, it was crucial to take your time throughout the interview. Participants were more interested and provided more complete replies when they were made to feel at ease and given the opportunity to read questions in advance or view their appearance on camera.
In addition to being extremely personal, Taylor sees oral history work as a means of fostering ties within the community.
She explained that it’s something you can share with your kids, grandkids, and great-grandchildren to let them know you were present. that you had a sense of belonging to a community, that you were significant, and that the things you valued and desired were significant. And I believe that’s something that people find really important.
Engaging community elders
According to Taylor, upholding and expanding the organization’s tradition is at the core of the Hester House initiative.
According to her, community elders frequently carry on that tradition, which makes the work particularly relevant.
The stories of the influence of the community center have not yet been shared, as the first few generations of children who attended Hester House have already passed away. According to Taylor, it is therefore essential to speak with elderly people who have recollections of the Hester House from the late 1950s and early 1960s.
People like 86-year-old Frank Henderson, who still takes part in Hester House’s senior programs after arriving as a 14-year-old in 1952.
He recalls going to after-school events like sock hops with Mickey Leland and a young Barbara Jordan.
According to Henderson, it’s critical to share the project’s history.
Having visited Hester House since she was a little child, Dorothy Steele, 80, said she participated in the project to recognize the safety and security the community center has given her, her kids, and even her grandkids over the years.
Hester House can help with anything you need, she said.
Participating in the oral history project meant more to Walker than just Hester House.
Walker’s grandmother established a life in Fifth Ward, which is how she became connected to the neighborhood. She takes pride in her community. She claimed that seeing it reduced to jokes and moniker like Bloody Fifth does not represent the Fifth Ward she is familiar with and loves.
She wants the next generation to understand the history of her hometown, which was once regarded as the Harlem of the South, as well as the economic prospects for Black entrepreneurs on Lyons Avenue, which is often referred to as Houston’s own Black Wall Street.
“I’m a Fifth Ward native, and I will always love Fifth Ward,” she remarked.
What s next?
According to Taylor, the documentary is currently in the rough edit stage. The crew originally intended for the film to be around thirty minutes long, but with the volume of material they have gathered, they may end up making it an hour long.
The launch event’s scope and other specifics are still being planned, but McKenzie hopes for an early 2025 release that would fall on Martin Luther King Jr. Day in January.
McKenzie and Taylor are both aware that the work must go on even as the specifics of the documentary’s release are being settled.
Seniors in the Fifth Ward are so eager to be interviewed that Taylor has been approached in public and asked if anyone would like to take part. She sees it as evidence of the value of preserving local histories.
Before you start asking around, you have no idea how wealthy a place is.
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