As the nation celebrates Juneteenth all this week, I reflect back to this week in 2024 when my friends Frank Thompson, his wife, Carol Bowe Thompson, and I walked from Galveston to the Houston Freedmen’s Town Conservancy to remember the end of the Civil War, Slavery, and the Reconstruction era of American history.
Our 51-mile walk was mostly flat and retraced parts of the Emancipation National Historic Trail. The proposed trail starts in Galveston at the Osterman Building and Reedy Chapel, where Major General Gordon Granger announced the federal order freeing slaves on June 19, 1865—a date now celebrated as Juneteenth. From Galveston, the trail extends to Houston’s Fourth Ward, where emancipated slaves settled during Reconstruction and built an enclave known as Freedmen’s Town.
What we learned from this walk was many formerly enslaved Americans actually journeyed to Galveston, the largest and wealthest city in Texas at the time, from plantations points west and north seeking jobs in the resort community. There was no immediate exodus of Freedom Seekers from Galveston after General Order #3 because Blacks were prohibited from leaving and still required a pass to move about the city. Also celebrations of freedom were severely restricted.
The first two days of our five day walk we were blessed by the remnants of a tropical storm. I know it sounds funny to say blessed by a tropical storm, but it left the area cooled by swirling winds and heavy cloud cover making the first days of the walk manageable as we criss-crossed the area from Texas City to Alvin. Day three to five became extremely difficult even as we modified our walking schedule starting as early as 5 a.m. and even walking at night as we reached the southern outskirt of Houston.
The heat overwhelmed us one day with less than 20 miles to go and we called Carol to come pick us up. Shortly afterwards Frank ended up in the hospital with severe blisters. I pressed on the next day to reach the Texas AIDS Memorial Garden, where we were joined the final day of the walk by several local walking groups and dignitaries, including Lharissa Jacobs, Fit Houston, Ed Petit, Friends of Columbia Tap, Michael Lee, the architect of the Memorial Garden, and Naomi Carrier, a historian, educator, and author of Go Down, Old Hannah: The Living History of African American Texans.
The final five mile leg of our historic walk took us along the Columbia Tap Railroad trail through HBCU campus of Texas Southern University and Houston’s Third Ward. Our first stop was Emancipation Park. Originally purchased by formerly enslaved Black leaders in 1872 to celebrate the holiday, it serves as the central hub for major annual festivities. We concluded the walk in Freedmen’s Town, “a living testament to the struggles and perseverance of Black Americans and their yearning to be full participants in the American story.”
Upon our arrival at the Houston Freedmen’s Town Conservancy, we were welcomed by Executive Director, Sharon Fletcher, and historians Jim Mora and Sam Collins. There are so many more people in Houston I am grateful to for helping us that go unmentioned here.
