UH and James D. Ryan Middle School partnered to honor the history and heritage of Jack Yates Senior High School through art, photography and digital media Tuesday in the Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture.
Yates High School alumni from the class of 1958 took center stage at the exhibition to reflect on how their lives were influenced by their former principal, William S. Holland.
‘This (event) means everything to me,’ Yates alumna Deloris Marie Johnson said. ‘This means a lot because our class is a historic class that left Yates as being the last class from the old school, and the last class that finished its entire course of schooling under professor William S. Holland, who was a dynamic leader and an inspiration to all.’
Jack Yates Senior High School, established in 1926, was the second black school in the Houston area.
The school is named for Rev. John Henry ‘Jack’ Yates, a former slave and minister of Antioch Missionary Baptist Church, the first black Baptist church in Houston.
Yates High School, a landmark of the Third Ward community, was located on 2610 Elgin St., until its relocation to 3703 Sampson St. in 1958. The original site became James D. Ryan Middle School, named for Yates High School’s first principal, who served from 1926 until his death in 1941.
The exhibition included photograph galleries of Yates High School alumni and an unveiling of the renovation plans for Ryan Middle School’s choir room and library. Attendees also screened a film that illustrated the history of the school through the voice of former students.
The exhibits were created by UH students and organized by Yates alumna Carroll Parrott Blue of the Dawn Project.
Victor Hugo Matsumura, a photography and digital media senior, used the project as part of a class assignment. But unlike his classmates who were doing projects about themselves, he said, Matsumura decided to do something that will have the potential to impact the community.
‘I decided to go into something that was less selfish and be a little bit more involved in the community (so that more people) can come’ see some of my work, rather than just people who attend Gallery openings and have thousands of dollars to spend on pictures,’ he said.
Matsumura said working on this project helped him understand the differences between today’s Third Ward and the Third Ward of the era during which the class of ’58 attended Yates High School.
‘I learned that there are a lot of things that we actually take for granted, a lot of freedoms that we have now (that) people didn’t have 50 years ago,’ he said.’
Blue and architecture professor Christian Sheridan advised fifth-year architecture students Chima Maduka, Melvalene McLemore and Tressa Powell, who designed the renovations for the Ryan Middle School.
The renovation for the choir room includes the creation of an art gallery inspired by the community’s history and an open area that could be used for music concerts, theater rehearsals, and the science fair, McLemore said.
Ryan Middle School principal Ruby Andrews said such projects are good for the community, especially for her young students.
‘It gives our children an opportunity to get an idea of what is like in the real world,’ Andrews said. ‘It gives African- American kids in a low socioeconomic status (a chance) to see what it is like to have African-American architecture college students they can identify with, and they begin to see that is something they can do, and makes them aspire to become professionals.’
