- Collection:
- Civil Rights in Black and Brown
- Title:
- Oral History Interview with Jesse Shead, July 22, 2016
- Creator:
- Enriquez, Sandra
Rodriguez, Samantha
Shead, Jesse - Date of Original:
- 2016-07-22
- Subject:
- Persons
Ethnic groups
Civil rights - People:
- Shead, Jesse
- Location:
- United States, Texas, Harris County, Houston, 29.76328, -95.36327
- Medium:
- oral histories (literary works)
biographies (literary works)
interviews - Type:
- MovingImage
- Format:
- video/mp4
- Description:
- Jesse Shead was born in 1947 in East Austin, a segregated African American neighborhood with thriving businesses. He grew-up going to African American schools, such as Campbell Elementary and Kealing Junior High, and experienced a middle-class lifestyle in his ethnic enclave. Shead went to Anderson High School before its closure and and reopening as an integrate school in 1971. After attending Huston-Tillotson University in Austin for two years, he was employed for the Humble Oil and Refinery Company in Baytown as it was transitioning to Exxon. While in Baytown, Shead witnessed instances of discrimination where he was refused service at local businesses. He talks about how desegregation efforts in Austin lead to the drain of African American professionals in the schools and overall community of East Austin, the weak company union at Exxon, how he was one of the few African Americans to work in the Exxon's processing department, his inability to rent in certain areas of town due to his race, and racial discrimination at Lee High School during the time that his two sons were attending. Shead also describes his unsuccessful bid to serve on the board of regents for Lee College, organizing around the police brutality case of Tyrone Henry, police harassment in African Americans in Baytown, his work for Crime Stoppers, how he participated in gang prevention through education, his involvement in the PTA in the Central Heights community, and how he struggled to address issues concerning lower income students.
- Metadata URL:
- https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth987532/
- Language:
- eng
- Extent:
- 5 video recordings (1 hr., 9 min., 10 sec.) : sd., col.
- Contributing Institution:
- University of North Texas. Libraries
- Rights:
-