The Texas Freedom Colonies Project

Registrations for the AYA Symposium 2026 are still open!
You can catch Dr. Andrea Roberts, and other descendants, community leaders, and partners, engaging in riveting conversations regarding land, its reclamation, retention and reuse.

🗓️ June 6, 2026
📍Trinity River Audubon Center, Dallas, Texas

🔗 Register through the link in our bio or visit www.ayasymposium.org

Honor Juneteenth at our upcoming events at the Varner-Hogg Plantation and Levi Jordan Plantation State Historic Site!

🌿Watrousville, later known as Watersville, was a post emancipation community on the west side of Brenham where Black families built churches, schools, and gathering spaces that anchored daily life. Centered around Mt. Zion Church, a cemetery, and a public school, it was part of a wider network of Black settlements in Washington County shaped by landownership, faith, and education. The community is closely tied to Benjamin O. Watrous, a formerly enslaved wheelwright, minister, and political organizer whose leadership helped mobilize Black voters and guide Reconstruction politics in the county. His work reflects how places like Watrousville became hubs of political organizing and community building in the years after emancipation.

✨Explore stories like this and many more, in The Texas Freedom Colonies Atlas.

📧If you have knowledge, memories, or research to share, we invite you to contribute and help us grow this work. Need help getting started? Visit our YouTube page, The Texas Freedom Colonies Project, for tutorials or email us at [email protected]

Your story matters.

[Sources:
"The Evolution of Black Political Participation in Reconstruction Texas," Merline Pitre in East Texas Historical Journal;
"African Americans and the Meaning of Freedom: Washington County, Texas as a Case Study, 1865-1886 - Freedom: Politics," Donald G. Nieman in Chicago-Kent Law Review;
National Register of Historic Places Registration Form No. SG100012533]

📣 With June just around the corner, we’re gathering Juneteenth community celebrations to spotlight on our platforms. Whether you’re hosting a picnic, parade, concert, workshop, festival, or family reunion, we would love to help share your events and spread the word! 🎉

Send your event details to -
📧 [email protected]
by May 25, so we can help amplify celebrations across the community!

Houston's Juneteenth celebrations expand to 19 days of citywide events 19 days of citywide events commemorating the end of slavery. Houston just revealed its Juneteenth plans

📌Community Spotlight: Bethel, Anderson, Texas.

🌾The Bethel community grew from a landscape shaped by bo***ge into one defined by persistence, memory, and self determination. Families who once labored on the Benjamin Jackson plantation rebuilt their lives here, first as tenants and later as landowners who established churches, schools, and a cemetery that grounded their sense of belonging. What began as scattered homesteads along sandy roads became a network of kin, caretakers, and stewards who refused to let their history fade. Bethel’s story is not only about survival, it is about the quiet generational work of claiming place in a world designed to deny it.

Explore stories like this and many more, in The Texas Freedom Colonies Atlas.

📧If you have knowledge, memories, or research to share, we invite you to contribute and help us grow this work. Need help getting started? Visit our YouTube page, The Texas Freedom Colonies Project, for tutorials or email us at [email protected]

Your story matters.