How some neighborhoods coped with racial integration across America said a lot about those particular neighborhoods.
I previously posted on Park Forest, Illinois, a neighborhood that tackled the issue of residential integration in a more positive way. Read the post here.
Now scheduled to be aired at the Houston Public Library – Central Branch, is the film This is Our Home, It is Not for Sale, a 190-minute 1987 documentary by Jon Schwartz. It chronicles the 60-year history of Riverside Terrace, a neighborhood located in what is known as the Third Ward, in Houston, Texas and the effect on that neighborhood when the Jack Caesar family was the first Black family to move there. Through photographs, home videos, news clippings, interviews and more, and set to the music of Houston’s own late jazzman Arnett Cobb, the documentary tells of the history of Riverside Terrace, a beautiful neighborhood near downtown Houston. The film sheds light on its transition from an upper class, Jewish neighborhood to an almost entirely affluent neighborhood of upwardly-mobile Blacks denizens, and how that neighborhood faced real estate blockbusting, white flight, and is now facing re-gentrification.
Cherie Bourgin and her home in Riverside are on the DVD cover. The house subequently would receive auspicious owners. Photo: JUDY YOUENS, FOR THE CHRONICLE / HC
The documentary consists almost entirely of interviews with residents, either current or former, some sitting, some standing in front of their homes, and sometimes in front of the highway (SH 288) or a vacant lot where their home used to be.
Jon Schwartz (who will be in attendance to answer questions after the screening) allows the residents to give voice to their life in this neighborhood which like so many across America faced a profound change that swept across America when housing was freed, at least on paper, from the racism of restrictive covenants of real estate and the Federal Housing Administration that condoned and insured housing inequality. Even so, restrictive covenants are hard to rescind, can require that all homeowners sign to have them removed, and must be amended five years before the restrictive clauses run out (usually within 25 to 30 years). Also, there are still communities which continue to have restrictive covenants in their deeds.
County officials where these communities exist have no power or authority to overturn or delete these covenants. The covenants, which were included in the deed at the time of sale of the property, would constitute a legal and binding agreement between the real estate company that sold the home, and the owner, who bought the home. Not to mention that not just the home is covered by these covenants, but also the plats where the homes are located on a map in the community.
Homeowners associations would have copies of the clauses that restrict based on race, creed, or color, and those same restrictive covenants would be a part of every homeowner’s deed, restricting access to neighborhood amenities to Whites only, as well as levying liens and fines against those who do not adhere to any of the rules stipulated by the homeowners association.
From the official website of the film, here is the synopsis:
This Is Our Home, It Is Not For Sale is the 60-year history of an archetypal American neighborhood, Riverside in Houston, Texas, which experienced the classic syndrome of integration, real estate blockbusting, white flight, and regentrification common to virtually every American city.
The film’s title comes from that era of racial transition when whites, pressed by real estate agents to sell to blacks, prominently displayed signs proclaiming: “This Is Our Home, It Is Not For Sale”–words that would be swallowed in almost every case as white owners stampeded and property values collapsed. Years later, that dictum remained just as timely and relevant to Riverside’s affluent black community as they continued to protest various social and institutional encroachments into the area.
For thirty years, Riverside was the cultural center of Houston’s Jewish community, who came to settle here upon being barred from other elite areas of the city by the existing “gentlemen’s agreements.” A viable community, Riverside seemed to have a stable future as a residence where white upper and middle class families–both Jewish and gentile–lived harmoniously together. But a series of unforeseen factors brought unexpected change.
This change was heralded by four sticks of dynamite which rocked the home of the Jack Caesar family, the first black family to break the color barrier and move into Riverside. This well-publicized bombing plus wide-spread blockbusting by real estate agents accelerated the racial transition. Middle and upper class blacks replaced fleeing whites into the area.
As such, Riverside emerged as one of the leading minority communities in the U.S. For upwardly mobile blacks who had found the good life here, their status quo was threatened by: 1) the expansion of two universities into the area; 2) the construction of a freeway displacing the western edge of the neighborhood; 3) the placement of a county psychiatric hospital within the neighborhood; and 4) the reappearance of white home buyers into the area.
The poignance of the re-enactment of resident responses, despite role reversals and a changing cast of characters, serves to evoke a deeper appreciation of the meanings and values we attach to home and neighborhood and of the forces that threaten those values. That a neighborhood with a sense of community faced crises, changed, and yet retained the same view the very nature of people, who, despite their differences, share many of the same hopes and aspirations.
Brimming with history, replete with social and political issues, the Riverside story is above all a human document. For Riverside is a neighborhood that speaks not just of history and issues, but of the intangible rhythms, spirit, and dreams of the people who have lived there.
WATCH SCENES:
This Is Our Home, It Is Not For Sale
Screening Info: “Stories From Riverside”, Saturday, February 4, 2012, 12pm Houston Public Library–Central Branch 500 McKinney
For those unable to attend the film screening, you may purchase the film by visiting the website and viewing its purchase policy.
Owning a home is still considered the American Dream.
How a community handles racial integration, even in present-day America, will say a lot about that community in years to come.
Ann
BEAUTIFUL, ALSO, ARE THE SOULS OF MY BLACK SISTERS 