Watching a speech by @TyinaSteptoe. She points out that the Houston Informer, a black newspaper, once printed the names of HPD officers who were known members of the KKK.

Jewish businesses were among the few white-owned businesses that would advertise in the Informer. Shared enemies, and all that

The Informer publisher and his family armed themselves to defend against KKK threats.

Prof. Steptoe points out that black community in 1920s Houston pushed more for self-sustainable communities and autonomy than integration with white communities — including armed self-defense

Buy her book https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520282582/houston-bound

NAACP got it start in Houston, she says, to oppose police brutality, including a specific example of a police officer whipping a black man. Early lawsuits against police brutality and killings were unsuccessful until the 1940s

An NAACP legal success stemming from Houston? Ending the white primary.
Their lawyer? Thurgood Marshall.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith_v._Allwright

Apparently it took critical advocacy behind the scenes by black women to get Marshall and the national NAACP to take the case. Interesting!

Ok now we're on the way to the civil disobedience movement in Houston. The first action against a segregated institution? Weingarten's, a Jewish-owned market specifically targeted because they had a reputation of being sympathetic to humanitarian causes

Much of the integration work wasn't covered by the local press. By 1967, after integration legally happened, police brutality was still a major issue. The police riot at TSU resulted in mass arrests of law abiding students

She points out that Houston's black population actually grew after WWII, which was rare for southern cities. The city attracted a lot of people from Louisiana -- notably French-speaking creoles

For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frenchtown,_Houston