Houston launches Juneteenth restoration effort at historic Riceville Cemetery

Riceville Cemetery, near South Gessner and West Bellfort in southwest Houston, got new attention on Juneteenth as city officials and community leaders moved to restore a burial ground tied to one of Harris County’s oldest Black settlements. The site sits in Riceville, a freedom colony founded by Leonard Rice in the 1850s and later anchored by Riceville Mount Olive Baptist Church, built in 1889.

Houston officials introduced improvements to the cemetery and a new Riceville Memorial, unveiled June 19 at 10 a.m. at Riceville Cemetery, 9945 Honeywell Road, Houston, TX 77074. The memorial was commissioned by City Council Member Edward Pollard with Riceville Mount Olive Baptist Church and is meant to stand as a permanent tribute to the Rice family and the broader history of the area.

For families tied to the cemetery, the effort is about more than landscaping or signage. Charles Garcia has described visiting the graves as a way of hearing the voices of family and ancestors, while Roy Smith, a 94-year-old Riceville native, has spoken about the loss that comes when a burial ground is neglected for years. Descendants and local historians say that preserving the cemetery helps protect Black history that was built through churches, street signs, elders’ memories and places like Riceville Mount Olive Baptist Church.

The Texas State Historical Association says Riceville was annexed by Houston in the late 1960s and, as late as 1982, still had no city services, no public water facilities and no sanitary sewers. That history matters now because it shows how long the community lived with exclusion even as it helped shape southwest Houston. Riceville Mount Olive Baptist Church traces its ministry to a brush arbor on Honeywell Road and says its history stretches more than 136 years, underscoring how central the church has been to keeping the community’s story alive.

The Texas Historical Commission says its cemetery program offers technical assistance for historic cemeteries and administers the Historic Texas Cemetery designation process, a key safeguard as burial grounds face neglect and development pressure. In Riceville, the restoration effort gives residents a concrete way to measure progress: whether the cemetery at 9945 Honeywell Road remains visible, cared for and clearly marked, and whether future generations can still find the resting place of the people who built this part of Houston.