Barbara Charline Jordan was an African American lawyer, educator, and politician. A Democrat, she was the first African American elected to the Texas Senate after Reconstruction and the first Southern African-American woman elected to the United States House of Representatives.
Sheila Jackson Lee is an American lawyer and politician who is the U.S. representative for Texas's 18th congressional district, having served since 1995. The district includes most of central Houston. She is a member of the Democratic Party, and served as an at-large member of the Houston City Council before being elected to the House.
The University of Houston is a public research university in Houston, Texas. It was established in 1927 as Houston Junior College, one of multiple junior college institutions formed in the first quarter of the Twentieth Century. In 1934, HJC was restructured as a four-year degree-granting institution and renamed as the University of Houston. Today, Houston is the third-largest university in Texas, awarding nearly 11,000 degrees annually adding to its worldwide alumni base of approximately 310,000.
Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. (ΔΣΘ) is a historically African American sorority. The organization was founded by college-educated women dedicated to public service with an emphasis on programs that assist the African American community. Delta Sigma Theta was founded on January 13, 1913 by twenty-two women at Howard University in Washington, D.C. Membership is open to any woman who meets the requirements, regardless of religion, race, or nationality. Women may apply to join through undergraduate chapters at a college or university or through an alumnae chapter after earning a college degree.
Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. (ΑΚΑ) is the first intercollegiate historically African American sorority. The sorority was founded on January 15, 1908, at the historically black Howard University in Washington, D.C., by a group of sixteen students led by Ethel Hedgemon Lyle. Forming a sorority broke barriers for African American women in areas where they had little power or authority due to a lack of opportunities for minorities and women in the early 20th century. Alpha Kappa Alpha was incorporated on January 29, 1913.
The Houston Cougars are the athletic teams representing the University of Houston. Informally, the Houston Cougars have also been referred to as the Coogs, UH, or simply Houston. Houston's nickname was suggested by early physical education instructor of the university and former head football coach, John R. Bender after one of his former teams, Washington State later adopted the mascot and nickname. The teams compete in the NCAA's Division I and the Football Bowl Subdivision as members of the American Athletic Conference.
Jack Yates Senior High School is a public high school located at 3650 Alabama Street, very near Texas Southern University, in the historic Third Ward in Houston, Texas. Yates High School handles grades nine through twelve and is part of the Houston Independent School District (HISD).
Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority, Inc. (ΣΓΡ) is a historically African American sorority, international collegiate, and non-profit community service organization that was founded on November 12, 1922. The organization was formed as a club in 1920, by seven African American women in Indianapolis, Indiana. At its inception, the sorority was created to support Black women pursuing degrees in education. It was incorporated within Indiana in November 1922 as a sorority for school teachers and held their first national conference in 1925. The sorority became a national collegiate sorority on December 30, 1929, when a charter was granted to the Alpha chapter then established at Butler University that year. The sorority was incorporated as a national collegiate sorority in 1930. Sigma Gamma Rho is the only sorority of the four historically African American National Pan-Hellenic Council sororities established at a predominantly White institution instead of at Howard University. It was the second African- American sorority established at Butler University. The sorority's slogan is "Greater Service, Greater Progress".
Alpha Phi International Women's Fraternity is an international sorority with 172 active chapters and over 250,000 initiated members.
Third Ward is an area of Houston, Texas, United States, that evolved from one of the six historic wards of the same name. It is located in the southeast Houston management district.
The Rebecca and John J. Moores School of Music is the music school of the University of Houston. The Moores School offers the Bachelor of Music, Bachelor of Arts in Music, Master of Music, and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees in music performance, conducting, theory and composition, music history and literature, pedagogy, and music education and also offers a Certificate of Music Performance. It is a component of the University of Houston's Kathrine G. McGovern College of the Arts. The Moores School is a fully accredited member of the National Association of Schools of Music (NASM). Its namesakes are UH alumni John Moores and his former wife Rebecca. As of 2021–2022, the Director of the Moores School is Courtney Crappell.
Alpha Lambda Omega Christian Sorority, Incorporated (ΑΛΩ) is a national, inter-denominational Christian sorority founded April 9, 1990, by four students at the University of Texas at Austin. The sorority consists of 14 chapters in the states of Texas, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Oklahoma and is governed by a national executive board in the headquarters in Houston, Texas.
Shasta is the mascot of the University of Houston athletics teams, the Houston Cougars. The name "Shasta" refers to both a live and an anthropomorphic costumed cougar mascot.
CoogTV formerly known as SVN is a student television station at the University of Houston, Texas, United States. Founded in 1974, it is one of several fee-funded organizations on campus, and broadcasts online through its web site and on the University of Houston's Cougar Philo cable network.
Riverside Terrace is a neighborhood in Houston, Texas, United States. It is along Texas State Highway 288 and north of the Texas Medical Center and located near Texas Southern University and University of Houston. There about 20 sections of Riverside Terrace that span across North and South MacGregor. The community, formerly an affluent Jewish neighborhood, became an affluent community for African Americans in the 1950s and '60s. It is still predominantly African American neighborhood with different income levels. It has been undergoing a gradual change in demographics and aesthetics due to gentrification efforts since the early 2000s.
The African American population in Houston, Texas, has been a significant part of the city's community since its establishment. The Greater Houston area has the largest population of African Americans in Texas and west of the Mississippi River. Black Enterprise has referred to Houston as a black mecca.
Mary Jackson was an American mathematician and aerospace engineer at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), which in 1958 was succeeded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). She worked at Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, for most of her career. She started as a computer at the segregated West Area Computing division in 1951. In 1958, after taking engineering classes, she became NASA's first black female engineer.
Carroll Parrott Blue was an American filmmaker, director and author. Based in Houston, Texas, she was part of the L.A. Rebellion film movement. She was noted for her documentary film and interactive multimedia works, particularly for her project The Dawn at My Back: Memoir of a Black Texas Upbringing. Blue was a research professor at the University of Houston. She worked to preserve and celebrate the history of the African American community in Houston.
Ida Louise Jackson was an American educator and philanthropist. She attended and graduated from the University of California, Berkeley following her family’s move to California. As one of 17 Black students that attended the university at the time, Jackson prioritized creating safe spaces for African American community members. Throughout her undergraduate career, Jackson was invested in a teaching career, specifically in Oakland, California. Despite push back from school administration, her dreams were finally realized in 1926 when she became the first African American woman to teach high school in the state of California. At the same time, her ambitions were rooted in giving back to her community back in Mississippi. Through the networks that she formed in California, Jackson returned back to her home state in 1935 to develop programs around education and health care for poor, rural Black folks. Ida Louise Jackson’s contributions were celebrated by her alma mater and the University of California, Berkeley named their first graduate apartment housing unit in her honor.
The Tilman J. Fertitta Family College of Medicine, located in Houston, Texas, is the graduate medical school of the University of Houston. The school enrolled its first class of 30 students in 2020.
