Salubrious city
Three personalities, now gone, encapsulated what it meant to be a modern Houstonian.
Only a place like Houston would take unbridled pride in a founding duo of New Yorker brothers Augustus and John Allen who brazenly misrepresented our thenmalaria infested swamp as “beautifully elevated, salubrious and well-watered.”
We don’t care — nobody comes here for the waters. People move to Houston because it is a place that nurtures bold instincts and grand dreams. We’re a city for those too big to live in small towns. Houston is place for East Coasters whose ambition refuses to be restrained by a staid establishment.
It was not by accident that that John F. Kennedy announced the Moon Shot not in Washington, D.C., but at Rice University.
Over the past two weeks, however, we’ve lost three of our best — a trio of men who encapsulated what it meant to be a modern Houstonian.
Ray Hill. Bob McNair. George H.W. Bush.
The three couldn’t have been more different. Hill was a grassroots activist — an essential irritant, as we called him — who fought for gay rights, AIDS victims and to give prisoners a voice. McNair was a business success story who levied his energy industry wealth into charitable endeavors and a beloved professional football team. Bush dedicated his life to public service and the Republican Party, and climbed to the highest ranks of government.
Their policy perspectives mark opposite ends of the spectrum — at times Hill was in direct conflict with Bush and McNair on LGBT rights and advocacy for prisoners. Yet each one flourished in our sprawling, swampy city, and spent a lifetime giving back. Bush represented us in Congress and focused the eyes of the world to Houston in his post-presidency. Hill’s legal fight for free speech traveled all the way to the Supreme Court, and his victory there in Houston v. Hill has immortalized his name along that of the city he called home. Any given Sunday you can see McNair’s legacy in the thousands of Houstonians who gather around their televisions and fill NRG Stadium to cheer for the Texans.
Houston is too big, too sprawling and too unzoned to limit our civic archetype to a single character. Like a giant jigsaw puzzle, we need all sorts of shapes and sizes to fit together to craft a vision that can keep up with a city this dynamic, this diverse.
Each of these three Houston icons leaves behind something bigger than themselves. Each made Houston a better place to live.
The three also have something else in common — they’re all white men.
For a long time, if you wanted to take part in the big conversations about our city it certainly helped to be a white man. The arbitrary privilege of birth opened doors and quieted rooms in ways denied to women and minorities.
That’s changing. Tomorrow’s leaders, activists and philanthropists won’t all look like the men we just lost. When Hill, McNair and Bush got their starts in Houston, our city was mostly Anglo. Now Hispanics comprise the largest single demographic in Houston. Women, who once faced major barriers in higher education, now make up a majority of university students.
We’re already starting to see the shift at the highest levels. Lina Hidalgo, a 27-yearold Hispanic immigrant, will soon serve as county judge. Bush’s former congressional district elected Lizzie Pannill Fletcher. Time will tell whether they’re able to embody the aspirations of their predecessors, or create wholly new expectations we have yet to even imagine.
It falls on those in power today to pass the torch well. We need to do more to ensure that the next Ray Hill or Bob McNair knows Houston wants them. This means more diversity on corporate boards and in public institutions. It means providing resources for local schools to prepare the next generation for leadership of all kinds. It means building a city that harbors opportunity for anyone willing to grasp it.
If Houston’s future is going to be as successful as our past, then we’ll need a healthy crop of both rabble-rousers and establishment types, politicos and protesters. That’s how to ensure our civic life never grows stale. Somewhere out there in our sprawling, swampy city, some kid with a big mouth or newcomer with big dreams is starting down the path to become the sort of person who will shape our city forever. Let’s make that path a welcoming one.
Houston’s appeal has never been in the landscape. Our strength has been in our people. As long as we nurture ambition wherever it exists, Houston will be ready for whatever the future holds.