Author Series: The Houston Negro Hospital In-Person
The Arts and Humanities Initiative at HMS and Countway Library invite you to celebrate the release of an important new book:
The Houston Negro Hospital: The Untold Legacy of Riverside General by Carlton Houston
The evening will weave history, storytelling, and music together, with violinist Grant Houston and pianist Dina Vainshtein performing works by prominent Black composers of the era.
About the Book
At the height of racial and political tensions in early twentieth-century Houston, two unlikely figures became allies. Dr. William M. Drake, a pioneering surgeon and Black community leader, and Joseph Cullinan, a white oil magnate and founder of the company that became TEXACO, united in a desperate effort to save a hospital that symbolized hope. The Houston Negro Hospital was born from America’s Black hospital movement. Dedicated on Juneteenth 1926, it embodied a bold experiment to bring dignity and health care access to a community that was systematically denied both in 
the Jim Crow South.
Journalist and storyteller Carlton Houston - whose ancestors played a role in this remarkable heritage - reveals the untold, human drama behind the institution that would become Riverside General. Discover the vision, conflict, and resilience that shaped a century of health care through the struggle of those determined to save lives.
Carlton Houston is an Emmy Award-Winning Journalist, historian, and author of The Houston Negro Hospital.
Grant Houston is an acclaimed violinist with A Far Cry and co-artistic director of the GRAMMY-nominated Palaver Strings.
