Communities of color push for better parks
A block from my childhood home was MacGregor Park, where I swung from monkey bars and learned how to play tennis, watching in awe as champion player Zina Garrison trained.
It was where families had picnics, seniors walked the jogging trail and teens, though sometimes rowdy, cruised through on weekends. It was an essential part of my healthy well-being and why a park setting brings me much peace even now.
If there is one lesson I learned during the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s that parks are crucial to our health since outdoor spaces are the least risky social setting. We need parks like we need air. But often parks in communities of color lack the funding and resources to offer what those communities need most: a place to sit among the trees, play basketball or other sports, gather with neighbors and enjoy the feeling of being active, whether an evening walk or run.
A Trust for Public Land study in 2020 revealed that parks serving primarily nonwhite populations are half the size of parks that serve majority-white populations and five times more crowded. Another report by the Center for American Progress states the “unequal distribution of nature in America — and the unjust experiences that many people of color have in the outdoors — is a problem that national, state, and local leaders can no longer ignore.”
MacGregor Park, like Hermann, Emancipation and Sunnyside, is one of the bigger parks in Third Ward and the surrounding area. But there are many small ones that need support.
Take Riverside Park, in which a group of residents has come together to form Friends of Riverside Park Houston to help enhance the park while working with the city parks department. In the past two years, the group has held family bike rides, voterregistration drives, healthy activities, including yoga classes, and a grant-funded Art in the Park series that culminated with families painting COVID masks in the park. Last Halloween, it joined forces with Houston Police Department and the civic association to bring in a Mardi Gras-style parade for area children.
On July 31, it will host the first movie night with a number of health-related activities, kids’ games and story time, the Houston Public Library’s mobile gaming bus, free colon-cancer-screening kits by Black Health Matters and art by Harambee Art Gallery. It’s being held in conjunction with Healthy Outdoor Communities, MacGregor Super Neighborhood and Riverside Civic Association, the Mayor’s Office of Special Events and council member Carolyn Evans-Shabazz.
“Oftentimes, our parks don’t attract our residents,” said Sharon Evans-Brooks, president of Friends of Riverside Park and former president of Friends of MacGregor Park. “Just because you have a swing and a little basketball goal doesn’t mean it’s a park for the community. So our parks need to be designed in such a way that they take into consideration the neighborhood. We realized we need programming and activities organized around the interests of the community. We want people to survey their park space and say, ‘This is a pretty nice little park here. Why don’t we utilize it more?’ ”
Riverside Park, with its hilly terrain and large oak trees, is surrounded by history. There’s the stately Groovey Grill Mansion, which was rebirthed from the Groovey Grill restaurant founded in 1944; Good Hope Missionary Baptist Church, which was organized in 1872; and the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity Inc., house, which was acquired in the 1960s and includes the Omega Nu Phi Educational Center that provides educational and charitable community outreach and will have fraternity members reading to children at the event.
“We are coming together to collectively improve how we use our parks,” said Glenn Gundy, the center’s board chairman. “Riverside Park is a jewel in our community, and we want our kids to enjoy it. This will be like a throwback occasion to when parks were the destination for families. This park is how we can invest in the health and wellness of this community.”
Friends of Riverside Park isn’t unique in its need for community support. Evans-Brooks said there are many “Friends” organizations throughout the city that have taken up that charge for their community parks.
“There is no reason why we shouldn’t be able have a strong commitment to Black health initiatives in our little neighborhood park that help mitigate some of the health disparities that exist, like diabetes and obesity. We’ve got to come together and be proactive in making it happen for ourselves.”