Students from Gregory-Lincoln Education Center and Carnegie Vanguard High school, along with local historians and community leaders, recently paid tribute to historic Freedmen’s Town in the Fourth Ward west of downtown.  During the “Celebration of Community” at Gregory-Lincoln Education Center, the students celebrated Freedmen’s Town’s past, present, and future through a vibrant display of speech, dance, and song.

HISD District VIII Trustee Juliet K. Stipeche presided over the program, which celebrated Houston’s oldest historically African-American town, founded by freed slaves after the Civil War when opportunities to own land and property were limited.  At the end of the celebration, a mural was unveiled commemorating Freedmen’s Town, which was designated a National Historic District in 1984.

The new Carnegie-Vanguard High School is being built in Freedmen’s Town near the Gregory-Lincoln Education Center and will open this fall.