Contribution report
A Martin Luther King Jr. holiday is set for Monday, with government offices and schools closed, but activities for the I-10 West/Brookshire MLK Celebration are set for public enjoyment.
The festival takes place on both Friday and Saturday. Nooney & the Zydeco Floaters and Koray Broussard & the Zydeco Unit will perform in concert on Friday. The show starts at 7pm at the Baa Baa Brewhouse, 539 FM 359, Brookshire. Advance tickets are $25.
The festivities continue on Saturday morning with a block party and parade in the afternoon.
The Block Party will be held from 10am to 12pm at Little Zion Baptist Church, 4010 4.th Saint of Brookshire. The party will be carnival-themed with a barbecue cook-off.
The parade starts at 12:00 pm at the church.
Event sponsors include City of Brookshire, Joshua Grand Lodge, Texas, Word of Promise Church, Greater Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church, and community members.
For more information, please contact Keith Woods at 281-248-3832.
Volunteer project to restore slave cemetery in Fort Bend County
Led by Sugar Land’s former U.S. Congressman Pete Olson and Sugar Land’s Exchange Club Commissioner Dexter McCoy, volunteers will restore two historic cemeteries in Fort Bend County.
The project will take place Monday from 8:30 to 11:30 am at Bates Allen Park in Fort Bend County, home to the historic Newman Chapel Cemetery and the historic Oak Hill Cemetery. The park is located at 630 Charlie Roberts Lane in Kendleton.
Volunteers tour the cemetery, clean the gravestones, and help remove shrubs that limit access to the historic cemetery for families and members of the public.
Restoration work began after the dilapidated tombstone of Benjamin Franklin Williams was discovered in February 2022. Exchange Club volunteers said he visited Bates Allen Park six times that year to clean the gravestone and remove access to it from overgrowth. Reconstruction of fallen tombstones.
Williams was a slave for the first 46 years of his life. After becoming a free man in 1865, Williams became the first black man to be recognized as a Methodist minister by the state of Texas.
Williams served three terms in the Texas House of Representatives, representing Fort Bend County, and was the first person of color to be elected Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives. He died on February 27, 1886 and is buried in his chapel cemetery in Newman.
When exchange club members first visited his grave, his tombstone had fallen into the mud and was covered with weeds and a bed of fire ants. Volunteers have rebuilt and cleaned the gravestone, but maintenance of this gravestone and 30 other gravestones at both historic cemeteries must remain constant. is a visit.
For more information, please contact Olson (pgointex@hotmail.com) or McCoy (dexter.fbc@gmail.com).
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