Fifth Ward party salutes past, potential
For years, Pastor Kim Kossie McGee’s father prayed for his neighborhood.
He asked God to work through his neighbors to revitalize the Fifth Ward — to create more opportunities and a stronger community.
As McGee walked among local vendors’ tents and listened to kids squeal in a bounce house set up across Lyons Avenue from her Latter Day Deliverance Church on Saturday, she said it felt like a divine promise kept.
Her father, who was pastor at the same church before he died in 2018, would have marveled, she said.
“To see all that’s happening now, it’s just amazing,” McGee said. “He would be beyond thrilled. All the things he prayed for — it’s happening.”
Saturday marked the first I Love Fifth Ward Block Party, which organizer Ashley Ruiz hopes to make an annual event.
Small business owners, many from Fifth Ward, lined Benson Street. One woman set up yoga mats and prepared to offer a free class to those who attended, artists showed children painting techniques and neighbors shared stories as they browsed the party’s offerings.
It was one of the first events in Fifth Ward’s burgeoning cultural and arts district, located along Lyons Avenue. Ruiz purchased the old Louis White Grocery store building right in the middle as an investment a couple of years ago and plans to turn it into an event space for the community through her business, Urban Engaged HTX.
A venue like what Ruiz is planning is sorely needed in Fifth Ward, said Deshara Goss, community initiatives manager with the Fifth Ward Community Redevelopment Corporation. She said there aren’t any event spaces in the neighborhood, and having it will mean there will be more for residents to do nearby.
“It’s frustrating to have to travel 20 to 30 minutes out of the neighborhood to celebrate a holiday or go to an event,” she said. “This will give us more options to celebrate together.”
It’s a reality Ruiz knows well having grown up in Fifth Ward and now raising a 4-year-old son, Chastin, there too. But Ruiz said she’s learned much about her neighborhood’s history as she has worked to open up the space. The building’s old owner was Elnora White, who helped plant the seeds of the civil rights movement locally in the late 1940s. She was arrested then for “talking back” to a white man, according to Houston Chronicle archives. After that, she joined local
civil rights groups before gravitating to national civil rights organizations.
All the while, White’s store served as a haven in Fifth Ward, offering credit, counseling and medical help for neighbors who were hard on their luck and often faced discrimination when they would seek those resources elsewhere.
Ruiz said she wants to continue that legacy.
She plans to dedicate each Tuesday and Thursday to the community, offering up her space for things like credit workshops for adults and arts classes for kids.
“Even though she died in 2002 and I never met her, I feel a connection,” Ruiz said. “People here know the building, but they don’t know her story. She’s like the Rosa Parks of the Fifth Ward.”