I was born at Riverside General Hospital in Houston’s Third Ward, a fact that surprises most people because they never knew a hospital existed there at all.
Unless you grew up in the neighborhood, the hospital’s history is largely invisible.
But for generations of Third Ward families, Riverside General Hospital was simply were life began, where the sick were cared for and where Black doctors and nurses — many of whom could not practice anywhere else in a segregated Houston — built something that belonged to the community…