The 2026 FIFA World Cup will bring the world’s largest sporting event to Houston next June and July. Jerry Davis, a former Houston City Council member, considers the event to be more than just a summer spectacle.
“This is an opportunity for new memories, a new legacy for those growing up in the Third Ward.”
Davis, who represented District B from 2012-20, shared a brief history lesson Tuesday during an appearance at the Columbia Tap Trail next to Texas Southern University in the city’s Third Ward. Davis explained the trail was started in the 1850s by enslaved Black men to transport sugar and cotton from the port in Brazoria County to Houston. The trail was then used to transport convicts back to plantations still active across Houston after Emancipation, and the subsequent 150 years saw the area suffer from a lack of funding and investment…