Natalie Weber / Houston Public Media
Located about 45 miles southwest of Houston, the city of Kendleton was founded by formerly enslaved people after the Civil War.
A new monument is honoring the freedmen’s town’s past and aims to educate visitors about Fort Bend County’s broader African American history.
The three-story African American Heritage Monument consists of red pillars covered in Adinkra, which are symbols from Ghanaian culture. The monument is surrounded by walking trails with educational plaques near two historically Black cemeteries in Kendleton’s Bates Allen Park, where a new Black Cowboy History Museum also is in the works.
“The whole point of this site is for every visitor who comes to Bates Allen Park, who comes to the African American Heritage Monument and Park, to feel connected to the stories that we’re elevating there,” said Fort Bend County Commissioner Dexter McCoy, who helped bring the monument to Kendleton.
McCoy moved to Fort Bend County from Louisiana when he was 9 years old. While he said he was taught about the history of his parish in Louisiana, McCoy, who is Black, didn’t learn much about Fort Bend County’s African American history as a child.
“I had no idea the great consequence of people who look like me in this community, in this state, right here on the very ground that we walk on every day,” he said.
The project also includes plans for a future 40,000-square foot learning center and event space, McCoy said.
“This is also an incredible tool to drive economic development and tourism dollars,” he said.
The county is partnering with the African American Memorial Conservancy, a nonprofit that was founded to fundraise for future aspects of the monument and the site’s ongoing maintenance.
“The significance of the monument is really to retell the stories that often have gone unrecorded,” said Vanessa Reed, the conservancy’s executive director.
Lucy Bremond, the conservancy’s founding board chair, said she believes the monument will help educate the community for years to come.
“It’s going to … not just tell the story, but help the future generations of people understand Kendleton, understand the monument and be able to tell the right story,” Bremond said.
The park will also soon be home to a new Black Cowboy Museum, which is scheduled to be completed in 2027. The museum is currently located in Rosenberg, and the county has dedicated $4 million to building the museum’s new facility in Kendleton.
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Larry Callies, the museum’s founder, said he’s grateful for the opportunity to move to a bigger facility. He has plans to offer outdoor activities and bring horses to the new museum.
“Everything I do in this museum is because God got me to do this,” Callies said.
McCoy said he hopes that together, the museum and the new monument can help shape Fort Bend County’s identity. The project’s designers visited other museums and parks to learn how they were built, along with the programming they offered.
“In studying those things, that’s what we hope to be able to emulate at this site that will have people coming and traveling the country or even the world over to be able to visit,” McCoy said.
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