Award-winning Video

Respect your cemetery: Houston group becomes a champion of revolutionarypreservation

Houston Arts and Media, a local creative conduit for historical histories, has received accolades in the 2012 Daughters of the American Revolution Historical Preservation Contest.

With Respect: Preserving Historic Cemeteries won first place in the national contest, and is "meant to encourage new volunteerism and involvement in the cause of saving the 50,000 Texas cemeteries deemed to be historic."

HAM conceived, developed and produced the 20-minute video, which was completed in partnership with the Texas Historical Commission and the Texas Society Daughters of the American Revolution, and funded in part by the City of Houston through the Houston Arts Alliance.

The documentary also brings attention to all historic cemeteries across the Lone Star State and the importance of preserving each.

It tells the story of cemetery preservation through anecdotes from volunteers and advocates at local historic cemeteries — Founder's Memorial Park, Olivewood and College Memorial Park — with testimony from City of Houston officials, including Parks and Recreation Department director Joe Turner.

But the documentary also brings attention to all historic cemeteries across the Lone Star State and the importance of preserving each, for reasons of posterity and genealogical research, and out of respect for the people of the past who contributed to our current communities.

"We are standing on their shoulders, and it is up to us to remember their legacy by maintaining these cemeteries," Debra Blacklock Sloan, a member of the Descendants of Olivewood advisory board says, in the video.

Watch the rest above.

Thanks, Queen Bey

Pop icon Beyoncé donates $100,000 to University of Houston Law School

Beyonce Super Bowl

Photo by Erza Shaw Getty Images

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Pop megastar Beyoncé Knowles-Carter has donated $100,000 to the University of Houston Law Center Criminal Justice Clinic through her BeyGOOD Foundation. The gift will allow the clinic to hire fill-time faculty to head it, benefiting the students who study there.

“I am delighted that the BeyGOOD Foundation has made this very generous gift to the UH Law Center,” said Leonard Baynes, dean of the UH Law Center. “Not only will this funding help establish a full-time criminal justice clinic that provides pro bono legal services in our community, but it will also supercharge our already excellent criminal law and justice programming.”

The clinic is one of nine at UHLC. It helps students learn to navigate the criminal justice system, especially on behalf of clients that are underserved by skilled attorneys. People of color are affected disproportionately by a lack of good, ethical representation.

Beyoncé, the most decorated artist in Grammy history and easily the biggest musical star native to Houston, has a long history of advocating for criminal justice reform. She was a staunch supporter of the police reform following the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, asking law enforcement to “stop killing us” in a web post. In 2020, she penned an open letter to the Kentucky attorney general asking for justice in the death of Breonna Taylor.

Through her BeyGOOD Foundation, established in 2013, Beyoncé has focused mostly on expanding the prospects of Black-owned business and offering education opportunities to students. Forwarding the cause of legal representation in Texas while also helping out marginalized communities compliments her other philanthropic work.

“At UH Law, we envision a legal profession where ‘everyone has the opportunity to prosper,’ as BeyGOOD envisions, and we will achieve this vision by providing access to strong and effective legal representation in criminal proceedings,” Baynes said. “And together, through this gift, the BeyGOOD Foundation and UHLC will shepherd the next generation of criminal justice attorneys in the city of Houston, the state of Texas and the nation.”

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