May 31, 2008
I started my involvement with low income housing and community development in 1975.
As a junior at the University of Texas at Austin majoring in history I signed up for a course and oral history and was assigned to the Clarksville neighborhood, an historic free black settlement in central Austin. When I showed up at the community center to find some people to do oral history interviews with I was told by the Center Director, Mary Baylor, that the folks in Clarksville were tired of being studied by white kids from the University of Texas and that if I wanted something from them I needed to tell them what I could give them back. I asked her what they needed and the next thing I knew I was involved in low-income housing.
Thirty-two years later I’m still looking for the answers I started looking for in 1975. I’ve learned a few things along the way that I feel a need to share and for that matter I’m learning stuff every day.
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