Homes on South MacGregor Way on Friday, May 13, 2022, in Riverside Terrace.

People stand outside of Riverside National Bank, the first Black-owned bank in Texas, in 1985. Now named Unity National Bank, is still the only Black-owned bank in the state.

Customers of Riverside National Bank await the failed institution's reopening today under new ownership as Peoples Bank.

Documentary filmmaker Jon Schwartz stands in front of the Groovey Grill mansion near Riverside Park in Riverside Terrace in the 1980s.

I grew up in Houston's Jewish River Oaks. That's what they called Riverside Terrace then.

I supposed the nickname was meant to be a compliment since the area consisted of mostly Black residents during my childhood. The neighborhood of stately brick houses, some quite enormous with circular driveways, multi-car garages and swimming pools, spreads along the north and south banks of Braes Bayou between Hermann and MacGregor Parks.

It was once predominantly Jewish and home to many of the city's noted Jewish retailers.

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As a child, I was told that River Oaks, the wealthy neighborhood of rolling acreage and Hollywood-style mansions to our west, did not allow Jewish people to live there, so Riverside Terrace was the next-best option. When Black people became more educated and could afford to live in better neighborhoods, we began settling here. The story goes that Jews didn't want to live around Black people, so they fled to Meyerland and other areas.

This narrative didn’t make sense when I was young. Issues of racial prejudice rarely do. I had heard this version of the origins of River Oaks and Riverside Terrace so many times that it became part of the story I told visitors, especially people who seemed surprised, shocked even, that Black people lived in nice neighborhoods.

Riverside Terrace and River Oaks, which were both founded in the same year and took years to develop completely, turned 100 years old in 2024.

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This is the first in a series of columns looking at how segregation shaped two of Houston's most notable neighborhoods, reflecting how the city grew from its beginnings in the 1800s and how race and prejudice were intertwined in that growth.

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My family lived in a ranch-style home on a small one-block street named after a tree. Many of the street names in Riverside Terrace were taken from the names of flowers and trees, and everyone had well-manicured lawns. We had a small pond in our backyard with a family of mallard ducks, which was my father’s idea because of my love for the children’s book, “Make Way for the Ducklings,” by Robert McCloskey.

My parents were one of two Black families to move on the block, which was anchored by a predominantly white church. A few years later, the church and its entire congregation moved out of the neighborhood.

Now that I am raising my own family in this area in which I was raised, the history of the neighborhood has stirred my curiosity. Could there be more to the........

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