thumb|Sign indicating the Fifth Ward
The Fifth Ward, nicknamed the Nickel, is a community of Houston, Texas, United States, derived from a historical political district (ward), about northeast of Downtown. Its boundaries are Buffalo Bayou on the south, Little White Oak Bayou on the west, Collingsworth Rd on the north, and Lockwood Drive on the east.
After the American Civil War, newly freed slaves began settling in the sparsely settled area. In 1866, it became the Fifth Ward and an alderman from the ward was elected to Houston's City Council. By the mid-1880s, it was virtually all black, home to working-class people who made their livings in Houston's east side ship channel and industrial areas or as domestics for wealthy Houstonians. Mount Vernon United Methodist Church, founded in 1865 by Reverend Emmanuel "Uncle" Toby, a former slave, is the oldest church in the ward. Five other churches are over a hundred years old. The Fifth Ward is also home to the famous "Island of Hope (Anderson Memorial Temple) COGIC" the oldest Pentecostal church in Fifth Ward. Over the years it had been home to the city's minority and immigrant population.
In the late 1800s the Fifth Ward community threatened to secede from the city of Houston twice, in 1875 and 1883. Complaints about inadequate municipal services, including fire and police services, lighting, sanitation, and drainage, occurred during this time period. The 1875 secession complaint asked for the paving of streets and upgrades to the utility system. The city government ameliorated the 1883 complaints by establishing a drawbridge at San Jacinto Street that crossed the Buffalo Bayou. It paved parts of Odin Avenue, now known as Lyons Avenue, in brick in the 1890s. The pavement ended two blocks after the residence of Mayor of Houston John T. Browne.
thumb|250px|1912 Great Fifth Ward Fire aftermath
On February 21, 1912, with stiff Northern winds blowing in, the largest fire in Houston's history began. This fire became known as the "Great Fifth Ward Fire". The strong winds spread the fire as embers set wood-shingled roofs on fire. It consumed a church, school, 13 industrial plants, eight stores, and 119 homes, mostly located in the Fifth Ward. There were no deaths, but there was over $3 million in property damage.
Post-World War I to the mid-20th century
In the post-World War I period the neighborhood makeup changed as a wave of African-Americans settled the Fifth Ward. The housing density increased as families put more people in each building in order to pay their rent. The buildings, occupied by too many people, began to deteriorate. Some Jewish people remained as landlords, but most of them moved away, with many of them going to New York City, including The Bronx; and Long Island. Robb Walsh of the Houston Press described the 1930s era Fifth Ward as "one of the proudest black neighborhoods" in the US; more than 40 black-owned businesses were along Lyons Avenue in the Fifth Ward at that time.
In the post-World War II period a large number of black migrants, many of them from Louisiana and some from East Texas and other areas in the Deep South, settled the Fifth Ward. The community became characterized by poverty since many of these migrants were unable to get non-menial jobs.
When Interstate 10 was built, it went through the Fifth Ward, dividing the community.
The city government established some pocket parks and added pavement, gutters, and curbing to several streets in the southernmost part of the Fifth Ward in the period 1964-1974, during the term of Mayor of Houston Louie Welch.
1970s and 1980s
thumb|House in the Fifth Ward by [[Danny Lyon.|left]]
Desegregation led middle class African-Americans to move to the suburbs. In the 1970s and 1980s the Fifth Ward became notorious throughout Houston for the violence perpetrated in the community. Ernest McMillan, a community activist and contributor to the Fifth Ward Enrichment Program, said in a 1987 Houston Chronicle article that "One of the differences between this neighborhood and one like River Oaks is that they have lots of support and all kinds of resources available. Here in the Fifth Ward it's the exact opposite: These people have no resources at all. There's one clinic, one library, no YMCA, very few activities, and the community is very fragmented. It's not the kind of environment that helps a child excel."
As of 1979 the median income in the Fifth Ward was $5,030 ($ adjusted for inflation), 25% of Fifth Ward residents had high school diplomas, and 34% of Fifth Ward residents lived below the poverty line. The respective citywide averages were a median income of $9,876 ($ adjusted for inflation), a percentage of those with high school diplomas of 52%, and a poverty line percentage of 10%.
West wrote in 1979 that about 90% of the Fifth Ward was characterized by "physical ugliness" and "poverty" while there are some middle class "pockets of affluence" that do not have physical indications of troubled neighborhoods. In the same period, the black population of the Fifth Ward declined by 3,286 as majority African-American neighborhoods in Houston had declines in their black populations. Gray added that the words "new" and "nice" were not often associated with the Fifth Ward, while "at-risk," "crime," and "poverty," were.
Japhet, a section of the Fifth Ward at Emile Street at Clinton Drive (two blocks east of Hirsch Road/Waco Street), was the Houston Press 2004 "Best Hidden Neighborhood." The article stated "Say the words "Fifth Ward" to most Houstonians, and they'll think crime, poverty and desperation." The article added that Japhet is "more like a village than anything else -- fragrant organic gardens are everywhere, bursting with vegetables, fruits and flowers, and the whole neighborhood comes together for a big party every full moon."
In 2007 the Fifth Ward was one of several Houston neighborhoods with a high concentration of felons. During that year a debate regarding the ownership of the historic Evergreen Negro Cemetery in the Fifth Ward continued. Some Hurricane Katrina evacuees also moved from Southwest Houston and lived in other parts of Houston such as the Fifth Ward.
In 2020 a survey concluded that 43% of area families had at least one member diagnosed with cancer.
Demographics
In 2015 the Greater Fifth Ward Super Neighborhood had 19,687 residents. 48% were Black, 46% were Hispanic, 4% were White, and 1% each was Asian and others. In 2000 the super neighborhood had 22,211 residents. 63% were non-Hispanic black, 35% were Hispanic, and 1% were non-Hispanic white; the percentages of non-Hispanic Asians and others were zero.
In 1870, 16% of the African Americans in Houston lived in the Fifth Ward; this rose to 21% by 1910.
Government and infrastructure
Greater Fifth Ward is currently located in City Council Districts B and H. As of 2024, Tarsha Jackson represents District B and Mario Castillo Jr. represents District H.[https://www.houstontx.gov/council/maps.html] https://www.houstontx.gov/council/maps.html
The community is served by the Houston Police Department Northeast Patrol Division, headquartered at 8301 Ley Road. The Fifth Ward Storefront is located in Suite 200 at 4300 Lyons Avenue.
The Houston Fire Department operates Station 19 Fifth Ward, a part of Fire District 19, on 1811 Gregg Street. The station first opened in 1925 at the corner of Gregg and New Orleans. The current location opened in 1979 at the opposite side of the intersection. In 1979 it had the highest number of fire and ambulance, beating, cutting, dead on arrival, emergency birth and other obstetric, false alarm, sickness and shooting calls of any Houston fire station.
The Harris Health System (formerly Harris County Hospital District) designated the Ripley Health Center for the ZIP code 77020. The designated public hospital is Ben Taub General Hospital in the Texas Medical Center.
The Houston Housing Authority (HHA) operates several public housing properties in the Fifth Ward. The include Kelly Village and Kennedy Place. Kennedy Place first opened as a 60 unit development in 1982. The HHA used $7.8 million, including some federal stimulus funds, to redevelop the housing. In January 2011 the new Kennedy Place opened, with 108 units (20 one bedroom, 58 two bedroom, 23 three bedroom, and 4 four bedroom).
The Fifth Ward is in Texas's 18th congressional district. Its representative as of 2026 is Christian Menefee.
Multi-service center and senior center
The city operates the Fifth Ward Multi-Service Center at 4014 Market Street, The city multi-service centers provide several services such as child care, programs for elderly residents, and rental space. in proximity to Interstate 10. It was built for $1 million (equivalent to $ in ), and by 1979 it had a day care, a juvenile probation center, a housing counseling center, an employment center, a health clinic,
Economy
West stated that possible reasons why the business climate in the Fifth Ward was poor, according to different people in the Fifth Ward, include a lack of effort to get investment from White people, the construction of freeways that cut off parts of the Fifth Ward, a lack of investment in the appearance of businesses, white persons leaving the Fifth Ward and taking capital, and the closing of the Lyons Avenue exit off of the Eastex Freeway, the eastern portion of U.S. Route 59 in Houston. West also stated that black flight contributed to the decline in Fifth Ward businesses.
Corporate presence
thumb|left|[[KBR (company)|KBR offices on Clinton Drive]]
KBR maintained offices in a campus on Clinton Drive, within the boundaries of the East End and the Fifth Ward. This property was along the Buffalo Bayou.
The KBR office complex was the former headquarters of Brown & Root. Brown and Root began buying land in the Fifth Ward in 1949. It initially acquired , then it acquired an additional . In December 2001 Halliburton canceled its plans to relocate employees to Westchase. Nancy Sarnoff of the Houston Business Journal said that it made more sense for the company to lease existing space instead of constructing new office space in times of economic downturns.
In 2010 KBR announced that it will vacate the Clinton Drive campus and move the 1,600 employees who work at the Clinton Drive office to the KBR offices in Downtown Houston. The company will then conduct an environmental cleanup of the Clinton Drive site.
As of 1979 the intersection of Lyons Avenue and Jensen Drive was called "Pearl Harbor" due to many violent incidents occurring there.
The southern edge of the Fifth Ward, along the Buffalo Bayou, housed farms in its early history before becoming a host of slums and the city dump by the 1920s. Cleanup of this area began when Brown and Root began establishing its headquarters in the late 1940s. In 1979 Englewood Radar Yard was the largest rail yard in the Southern United States.
The rail yard was the location of a now-defunct wood preservation plant which is a continued source of creosote contamination to the neighborhood. This plant, as of 1979, gives a distinct odor that caused area Mexican Americans to name it el Creosote.
In 2019 the Texas Department of State Health Services conducted of a study of an area in the Fifth Ward around Lavender Street, near a creosote facility of a former rail yard, where cancer rates were higher than normal.
Frenchtown
thumb|[[Our Mother of Mercy Catholic Church]]
In 1922, a group of Louisiana Creoles organized the Fifth Ward community of "Frenchtown," which contained a largely Roman Catholic and Creole culture. The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 forced many Creoles to leave Louisiana, and they settled the Frenchtown area.
Richard West of the Texas Monthly wrote in 1979 that within the Fifth Ward one's personal status "is determined less by what you have than by personal qualities of wit and style and by what you know of the power structure of the street".
Religion
Mount Vernon United Methodist Church, founded in 1865, is the community's oldest church, and the Fifth Ward has six churches that, as of 2011, are over 100 years old. Kate Shellnutt of the Houston Chronicle said that the historic church facilities "have been community strongholds."
In 1979 the largest church in the Fifth Ward was the Pleasant Grove Baptist Church, with 5,600 members.
Education
Primary and secondary schools
thumb|[[Wheatley High School (Houston)|Wheatley High School|left]]
thumb|[[Young Men's College Preparatory Academy (former campus)|left]]
Public schools
Area students attend schools in the Houston Independent School District. Blanche Kelso Bruce, Dogan, and Nathaniel Q. "Nat" Henderson. Sherman Elementary School, outside of the Fifth Ward, serves a portion. due to the proximity of Interstate 45, Bruce Elementary experienced noise pollution and twice the amount of asthma compared to the HISD average. About 99% of the students were black or Hispanic.
Some areas are zoned to John L. McReynolds Middle School in Denver Harbor, and some areas are zoned to Lamar Fleming Middle School, north of the Fifth Ward. Phillis Wheatley High School in the Fifth Ward serves almost all of the Fifth Ward, while Northside High School (formerly Jefferson Davis High School) serves a small portion of the Fifth Ward. Young Men's College Preparatory Academy, an all-boys middle and high school, is in the Fifth Ward.
Effective 2026, Fleming and McReynolds middle schools will move onto the property of Leland Middle and merge into a comprehensive middle school that shares the property with the boys' school.
YES Prep Fifth Ward, a state charter school, is in the Fifth Ward. It was founded in 2011. Northwest Preparatory Academy, a state charter school, is in the Fifth Ward.
Private schools
A Kindergarten through 8 Roman Catholic school called Our Mother of Mercy School, the school of the Our Mother of Mercy Catholic Church of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston, was in the area. It closed in Spring 2009. The school was consolidated with St. Francis of Assisi School in Kashmere Gardens, which closed in 2020.
Histories of schools
Smith Education Center first opened in 1913. Crawford opened in 1917. Bruce opened at 713 Bringurst in 1920. Davis opened in 1926. On January 31, 1927 Wheatley first opened in the former McGowan Elementary School building. A school which was originally a county school was relocated to 2011 Solo Street in 1927; in 1929 it was renamed after Charles H. Atherton. The building later known as Carter Career Center opened in 1929. Wheatley received a new facility in 1949. A school was named after Nathaniel Q. Henderson in 1956. McReynolds opened in 1957. Fleming opened in 1968. In 2006 much of Wheatley High School had been rebuilt. Bruce moved to a new facility at 510 Jensen Drive in 2007. As of Spring 2011 Atherton is located in the previous Concord Elementary School/North District office building. Fifth Ward middle school students previously zoned to Smith were rezoned to Fleming and McReynolds.
By 2011, Young Men's College Preparatory Academy was to open in the current Smith location. By 2015 it moved to the former Crawford Elementary School. Its permanent campus is on the site of the former Carter Career Center.
The Fifth Ward included the DeVry Advantage Academy, a DeVry University-affiliated HISD high school housed in a building that was formerly housing Carter Career Center, an HISD vocational school and pregnant girls' school. DeVry opened in 2011 and closed in 2012.
Benji's Special Educational Academy, a state charter school near the Fifth Ward, merged into Victory Preparatory Academy in 2011; that northern campus of V Prep closed in February 2018.
Public libraries
The Fifth Ward is served by the Houston Public Library Fifth Ward Neighborhood Library.
Community services
Fifth Ward Community Redevelopment Corporation is a nonprofit community-based agency located in Houston’s historic Fifth Ward community. In 1989, community civic leaders, business owners, ministers and educators came together in the interest of community improvement. The organization has operated under the same name since its inception. The Fifth Ward Enrichment Program operates afterschool programs. Community Partners operated community services in the Fifth Ward. The Human Organizational Political and Economic Development, Inc. was established in the summer of 1967 by Methodist minister Reverend Earl Allen and operated a Black Arts Center, the Roxy Theater and published the Voice of Hope. John de Menil had been instrumental in providing funding, and the organization encountered financial difficulty's after de Menil's 1973 death. The Emergency School Aid act provided $164,000 in September 1978, and the National Endowment of the Arts stated that it would give a grant of $15,000 one month later. Habitat for Humanity built Fifth Ward houses beginning in 1991, with the first on Rowley Street. It was named after the person who donated the land for the park in 1939, Annette Finnigan. In May 2011 the city announced that it is closing Finnigan Pool.
The Swiney Community Center, operated by the City of Houston is located at 2812 Cline. The center has a playground and an outdoor basketball pavilion.
The city will establish the Fifth Ward Future Park at 4700 Clinton, 77020.
The Julia C. Hester House serves as a settlement house and community center. As of 1979 it offers youth activities and community services, and it is a part of the United Fund.
Transportation
thumb|250px|Fifth Ward/Denver Harbor Transit Center|left
Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County, Texas (METRO) operates bus routes. The agency operates the Fifth Ward/Denver Harbor Transit Center on Lockwood Street.
Prior to 1952 electric streetcar services were available on Lyons Avenue. Buses with steel wheels used these tracks during the late 1950s.
Fifth Ward is where the rap group “The Geto Boys” originated from.
The crime novel Act of Love by Joe R. Lansdale is set in the Fifth Ward and tells the story about a fictitious serial killer kalled "The Houston Hacker".
Notable people
thumb|right|250px|Fruits of the Fifth Ward, a mural depicting 21 notable individuals who are either from the Fifth Ward or have connections to the Fifth Ward
- 5th Ward Boyz
- John T. Browne, (Mayor of Houston) - As of 1979 his residence was used as an Italian American-owned grocery store, Orlando's Grocery
- Alfred C. Finn, architect
- George Foreman - professional boxer and heavyweight champion
- Geto Boys
- Jordan's parents continued to live in the Fifth Ward.
- James Prince
- Joe Sample
- Ruth Simmons, president of Prairie View A&M University and former President of Brown University
- Lonnie Smith, plaintiff of Smith v. Allwright
- Selvin Young
Fruits of the Fifth Ward, a mural depicting 21 notable individuals who are natives of the Fifth Ward or have connections to the Fifth Ward, was created by Wheatley High School students. Reginald Adams, the executive director of the Museum of Cultural Arts Houston (MOCAH), oversaw the creation of the mural. The project began after the History Channel gave MOCAH a $10,000 grant to create a mural depicting the history of the Fifth Ward. The mural was constructed from February 15 to October 21, 2006. The mural was dedicated on Saturday October 21, 2006<!--the day after the news article was posted, according to the article-->.
See also
- History of the African-Americans in Houston