The subdivisions called Sugar Valley, Reedwood, and Blue Ridge were built in the 1950s and 60s. They
were designed to house the growing African American population of Houston — at a time when
newcomers were crowded into Houston's historic Black neighborhoods: the Third, Fourth, and Fifth
Wards -- and Independence Heights. Third Ward was home to about 25,000 African Americans, more
than a third of the city's Black population in 1940, and the area was almost exclusively Black (98%).
Between 1940 and 1950, the Black population of Houston grew enormously, from about 86,000 to
about 125,000 people. As historian Bernadette Pruitt has shown, the great Black migration of the early
20th century was a movement -- not just from the southern U.S. states to northern cities like Chicago,
Detroit, and New York -- but also from the rural areas of the south to urban centers in the south, like
Houston. Jobs were plentiful during the war, and the federal government incentivized construction of
housing for returning soldiers. Many of the families who bought homes in Blueridge, Reedwoods, and
later Sugar Valley were part of this migration story. They came from rural Texas or Louisiana and planted
themselves in the Third Ward area. When new suburban homes were offered for sale, families pooled
their resources to buy.

 

Residents describe a vibrant, deeply connected community where the adults would watch each other's
kids, the church was always full-on Sundays, and the schools were terrific. The neighborhood's Worthing
High School was built in 1958, around the same time the neighborhood developed. Students once
bussed to Miller Jr. High and Yates High School then had their own school in their own neighborhood.
The original Worthing High School would later become Attucks Junior High School when the new
Worthing High School was built. Dedicated staff like Principal Allen E. Norton, who served as principal
for the school’s first 20 years, until 1978, ensured quality education for the neighborhood youth. Even
after Norton left, the school's reputation remained strong.
Most of the neighborhoods’ original homeowners are gone now. Born in rural southern freedom
colonies or on sharecropping farms in the 1920s or 30s, they migrated to the city's segregated wards
before moving to the newly built, segregated suburbs in the 1950s and 60s. When they passed away,
their children inherited the homes and raised their own children in Sugar Valley, Blueridge, and
Reedwoods.
 

The neighborhoods remained strong under the stewardship of the second generation. Their children,
the neighborhood's third generation, attended Worthing High School and, as one resident explains, we
worked hard to send our kids to college”. But when they graduated, they did not want to move back.
But was it about their desire to move away, or was it about the availability of other options? The third
generation graduated into a world where the Fair Housing Act made it possible for them to buy outside
the segregated neighborhoods their parents and grandparents had built. So, they moved.

During the early years, Blueridge and Sugar Valley had strong Civic Clubs. Citizens denied the
development of HOAs because they did not feel they could afford the dues and the rules. Reedwoods
did not have a civic club of its own but met with Blueridge Civic Club. On many maps, Reedwoods is
often confused with being a part of Blueridge. Because of the excellent records kept by Mrs. Imogene
Duke, the Secretary of Blue Ridge Civic Club for many years and what we learned from members of
Sugar Valley Civic Club who served under Margaret Jenkins, we have been able to put together the
history of those civic clubs.
 

Some say the neighborhoods fell into a decline in the 1980s, which is true of most Black American
neighborhoods, because federal policies incentivized banks to circulate money everywhere except Black
neighborhoods -- for decades -- until the Fair Housing Act of 1968. Under conditions like these, when an
area is starved of capital, any area will deteriorate over time. But residents remember a different
timeline. It was not till the turn of the century that the character of our neighborhoods changed.
Between 2000 and 2010, the population dropped from 4,735 to 1,298 (down from its height in 1940,
when the residents numbered just over 10,000.)
 

A big part of the change was probably the expansion of charter schools. President George W. Bush
poured millions into charter schools in the early 2000s, and as a result, neighborhood schools suffered
because students enrolled in magnet schools outside the neighborhood. In the Sugar Valley, Blueridge,
and Reedwoods area as in other Black Houston neighborhoods, racist policies and practices have
stripped families of their intergenerational wealth by devaluing the neighborhood, starving it of capital,
and now, as flooding threatens some of the residents who remain they are using federal dollars to
rebuild houses that are smaller, have fewer amenities, and further devalue the family's already devalued
wealth. But, given the same opportunities, and if we move back to our neighborhoods the doctors,
teachers, police officers and small-business owners who have moved away, would help to grow the
same economic growth in our neighborhoods that we see in others. Today, we are fighting to preserve
our history in the midst of growth and development.
 

In 2018, the Board, under the presidency of Tina Mosley of the Greater Sugar Valley Civic Club, saw the
benefit in merging members of the other two communities to be one civic club after members of the
other communities began attending meetings. Under the leadership of the current president, Dr.
Patricia White Spikes, we have incorporated all three neighborhoods into one, along with Carolina
Gardens and Scottcrest. Our goal is to incorporate all neighborhoods within our boundaries to operate
as one giant Civic Club for the common good of all residents. Today, we have become a pattern for other
neighborhoods with declining original homeowner residents to do the same for the good of all. We
stress Deed Restrictions for all communities because Houston does not have zoning laws. All our
citizens have for protection of their neighborhoods, except, HOAs are the Deed Restrictions.