Samuel Walker Houston (1864–1945) was a prominent African-American pioneer in the field of education. He was born into slavery on February 12, 1864, in Huntsville, Texas, to Joshua Houston, a slave owned by Sam Houston.
Houston founded the Galilee Community School in 1907, which later became known as the Houstonian Normal and Industrial Institute, in Walker County. In 1930, Houston's school was consolidated into the Huntsville Independent School District. Samuel W. Houston was named supervising principal over nine Walker County schools, including the Samuel W. Houston High School for black students.
In 1995, on the grounds of the old Samuel W. Houston Elementary School, the Huntsville Independent School District, along with the Huntsville Arts Commission and the high school's Ex-Students Association, commissioned artists Larry Zink and Monica Taylor to create The Dreamers, a monument to underscore the contributions made by the black community in the growth and development of Huntsville and Walker County.
Famous quotes containing the words samuel, walker and/or houston:
“Although Samuel had a depraved imagination—perhaps even because of this—love, for him, was less a matter of the senses than of the intellect. It was, above all, admiration and appetite for beauty; he considered reproduction a flaw of love, and pregnancy a form of insanity. He wrote on one occasion: “Angels are hermaphrodite and sterile.””
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)
“When and where will another come to take your holy place?
Old man mumbling in his dotage, or crying child, unborn?”
—Margaret Abigail Walker (b. 1915)
“When your dreams tire, they go underground
and out of kindness that’s where they stay.”
—Libby Houston (b. 1941)