Black History Month: Why 3 Freedmen's Town homeowners fought Rice University to keep their land

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- In a David vs. Goliath type of showdown, three Black homeowners who were previously enslaved took on the wealthy Rice Institute when they began buying up property in Freedmen's Town. This happened during the Jim Crow era when Rice wanted to expand its land to build its university.

Dr. Caleb McDaniel and Dr. Alexander Byrd, who both teach history at Rice University, uncovered the mostly hidden part of history a few years ago while leading the school's Task Force on Slavery, Segregation, and Racial Injustice.

"There is a lot that's surprising about the way that the university interacted with the Black public in Houston," Byrd, who is also the vice provost for diversity, equity, and inclusion at Rice, said. "The university is very much a Jim Crow University. It was founded and built in the Jim Crow period of American history."

The very first trustees of Rice University originally wanted to build the campus on a property on Louisiana Street near Leland Avenue. It was a small plot of land deeded to the Rice Institute by William Marsh Rice in 1892 that they wanted to expand.

As a result, the institute began buying out properties around their site from formerly enslaved people in Freedmen's Town. However, Bettie Leonard, Laura Hardy, and Robert Shaw adamantly refused multiple offers to sell to them.

Hardy was married to the first principal of the Gregory School, which was just down the street from their home. Leonard's property was passed on to her by her mother, Sally Wicks, who purchased it in her few years of freedom after emancipation.

"We're talking about people who were property, whose ancestors were property. As enslaved people, their access to property of their own was severely limited. So the post-emancipation period provided high aspirations for them to make a way of their own and pass on wealth to future generations," Byrd said.

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The tension eventually led to the institute putting up fences and blocking access to their homes. At one point, a large charity circus for the Ku Klux Klan was held on Rice's property within sight and hearing distance of their properties.

Even then, Leonard, Hardy, and Shaw never wavered. Though they were impoverished, the homeowners stood their ground and hired a lawyer to file an injunction against Rice.

"I think it's really important to study and understand that there was a lot of courage and determination showed by these early residents in Freedmen's Town to defend their property and their rights to the fullest extent of the law, even taking an institution with much deeper pockets to court," McDaniel said.

The lawsuit dragged out for quite some time, and according to court records, the case was eventually dropped for lack of prosecution. Meanwhile, Rice University moved three miles southwest to its present-day campus on Main Street.

"I do think that Rice's intentions for the property were frustrated by this lawsuit. They couldn't sell the property to Houston ISD or anyone else for that matter, as long as there were still property holders that were claiming pieces of that land that prevented them from selling the whole thing off," McDaniel said.

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Shaw and Leonard held onto their homes until they died, which were then acquired by Rice through unknown means. Hardy eventually sold her land and moved further west into Freedmen's Town. It is believed that the Whitehall Houston Hotel now sits where their homes once were. Rice's former property is now the headquarters of Chevron.

Not much more is known about them, other than Hardy, Leonard, and Leonard's mother are now buried at Olivewood Cemetery. Historians haven't been able to find any photos of them either. But they hope this momentous part of history and what it signified won't ever be forgotten.

"It's important for a university to understand its own history, especially when that history includes errors and things that need to be repaired and improved over time," said McDaniel. "This is a part of Houston's history, not just Rice University's. We can't really move forward as a community until we know our own past and look back on stories like these."

To learn more about this story, visit Rice University Task Force on Slavery, Segregation, and Racial Injustice's website.

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