SAN ANTONIO \u2014 Some of those who fought for freedom during the civil rights movement are still around. Those elders are making sure their years of activism live on in San Antonio.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re trying to save the historical significance of this neighborhood as much as possible. And it’s not been easy,\u201d former San Antonio City Councilman\u00a0Mario Salas said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For decades, Salas has worked to preserve Black history on the East Side.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of the empty lots used to have houses on them and they were bought up, a lot of them by out-of-town investors,\u201d Salas said. \u201cAnd they don\u2019t give a damn about what the history of the neighborhood is.\u201d<\/p>\n
The professor and activist says the Denver Heights neighborhood was predominately Black in the 1960s.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is where the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) office was located,\u201d Salas said.<\/p>\n
Although it\u2019s now an empty lot, this is where colleges’ Black Student Unions met to plan their protests against injustice.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThey fought against segregation,\u201d Salas said. \u201cThey fought against white supremacy. They made a real big difference in what was going on in the country at the time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Decades later, a historic marker now stands at the corner of Iowa and Pine Street \u2014 acknowledging SNCC\u2019s impact.<\/p>\n
\u201cSNCC was helping the everyday people,\u201d said Becky Brenner with the SNCC Legacy Project. <\/b>\u201cAnd they won our respect as civil rights workers in Alabama. SNCC won our hearts and minds.\u201d<\/p>\n
It’s one of many historic markers that documents significant places.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve put up plaques to save a few,\u201d Salas said. \u201cWe\u2019ve got more plaques to put up so that people won\u2019t forget what this neighborhood was like.\u201d<\/p>\n
And the people who fought for civil rights.<\/p>\n
\u201cComrades and close friends that are no longer with us,\u201d Brenner said. \u201cWe wanted to make sure they were included in our thoughts and hearts today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Elders like Nettie Hinton say Black history is being erased. These markers help young people appreciate those who came before them.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to feel certain that the generation younger than we are will continue to fight just as hard, and as strong and as intelligently as we fought,\u201d said Hinton.<\/p>\n
As neighborhoods continue to change, Salas believes the markers ensure San Antonio\u2019s Black history won\u2019t be ignored or forgotten.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s important to remember what they did so future generations will know we fought hard to get where we are and were not about to give up the fight now,\u201d Salas said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN ANTONIO \u2014 Some of those who fought for freedom during the civil rights movement are still around.…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":949905,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5133],"tags":[105267,5229,7363,359,7366,1596,31126,50,7202,7203,358,41035,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,5284],"class_list":["post-949904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-amber-hughes","tag-america","tag-app-community","tag-austin","tag-community-news","tag-dallas","tag-el-paso","tag-news","tag-san-antonio","tag-sanantonio","tag-texas","tag-texas-what-you-need-to-know","tag-tx","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-vod"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116958800292594131","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/949904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=949904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/949904\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/949905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=949904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=949904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=949904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}