The ‘Mayor of Ivy Hill’ gets his flowers for years of service
Houston Stevens (right) and Ivy Hill community members at the “Houston Stevens Way” street renaming ceremony on Saturday, Oct. 30, 2021 (Courtesy: Yuri Lev Studio )
NEWARK, NJ—More than a hundred community members gathered at the corner of Ivy Street and Tuxedo Parkway in Newark's Ivy Hill neighborhood for a street-renaming event in October. Locals, including friends and family members of Houston Stevens, made sure to give him his flowers while he is still alive.
Held on Saturday, October 30, the ceremony reflects the decades of anti-racist, community-driven political struggle that residents in the Ivy Hill Neighborhood Association have spearheaded in Newark's West Ward in large part due to Mr. Stevens's leadership and commitment. So, in renaming Ivy Street to "Houston Stevens Way," we recognize his goals of working-class empowerment and international unity as central to our community's core values.
Mayor Ras Baraka pays homage to Houston Stevens’ years of service to Newark’s Ivy Hill community at the street renaming on Saturday, Oct. 30, 2021 (Courtesy: Yuri Lev Studio )
In Newark, a person must either be deceased or 80 years old for a street to be named after them, and Mr. Stevens received this honor the day after his 80th birthday. The street renaming was initiated by West Ward councilman Joe McCallum and ratified by the City Council within days of the event. A longtime friend, McCallum first collaborated with Stevens some twenty years ago when the two worked as organizers with the Unified Vailsburg Services Association.
The spirit of the event was full of love. And as his daughter, I was struck by the sign unveiling, and the City's presentation of the accompanying resolution to my father. I reflected on Houston Stevens' legacy as a leader engaged in revolutionary and, indeed, communist struggle in this community. It was also a moment to reflect on his journey to this moment.
A legacy in the making
Houston Stevens speaks at the podium, accompanied by his daughter Margaret Stevens and grandson on Saturday, Oct. 30, 2021 (Courtesy: Margaret Stevens)
Before moving to Newark in August of 1988, we lived in Chicago. My father, who'd been a labor, community, and political activist throughout his youth, soon became involved in community organizing in Ivy Hill. Inspired by the Civil Rights and anti-war movements of the 1960s and 70s, he's described his efforts as doing things that are helpful to the community: "Mayor Gibson called me a community activist, and I think that's an appropriate title. Basically, I'm a community advocate and an organizer. I organize people to come together to achieve their goals for a better community."
By 1992 Stevens had helped to found the Tuxedo Parkway Block Association in Upper Vailsburg. "At that time, we had a very, very serious drug trafficking problem on Mount Vernon and Eastern Parkway. And we could see that that was going to tear down this neighborhood if we allowed it to continue," said Stevens. "We approached young people who were involved in it, and they complained that there was nothing in the area to do — no recreation, no after-school activity or anything like that. At that point, we realized that we needed to do some basic community organizing, to advocate on behalf of the youth."
"We did a couple of events in the park in Ivy Hill Park, seeking to pacify the park and transform it into a mecca for the community to engage with each other, both recreationally, culturally." By 1994, the group had a secure footing. That's when Stevens and co-founder Clara Rose ceded their leadership of the Tuxedo Parkway association and moved on to mobilize the Ivy Hill Neighborhood Association, where he was the founding president. The roots of this non-profit can be traced back to 1983, when it started as an ad hoc collective in response to safety and quality of living concerns in the area.
Over the years, he started and maintained a little league team for the children in the Ivy Hill apartments and community since 1998. Among the hallmark activities for which Mr. Stevens is known is the annual International Food Festival that just marked its 21st year this past August. The festival is held at Ivy Hill Park and has drawn residents from the Polish, East Indian, Caribbean, Latin American, and other diasporas in Newark's West Ward—many of them living in the Ivy Hill Park Apartment. The long-standing event has fostered the celebration of Ivy Hill's diversity and inclusivity. Stevens has also supported local block parties, art programs, and community-driven anti-violence initiatives.
These activities were all ways that Mr. Stevens helped empower residents to bring the idea of community to life, to show everyday people that the power to improve our lives comes only through collective organization and struggle. At the heart of these efforts is the basic premise of Mr. Stevens's world view: all wealth comes from workers, and that workers must organize themselves rather than rely on others to meet their interests and needs.
Houston Stevens (right) and IHNA President Rev. Douglas E. Bell at the street renaming on Saturday, Oct. 30, 2021 (Courtesy: Yuri Lev Studio)
Along with his community efforts, Stevens worked for about 14 years as an Affirmative Action officer at the New Jersey Economic Development Authority enforcing labor laws on NJEDA-financed construction contracts and contractors in northern Jersey. His work supported affirmative action rights for women and minorities and helped ensure employees received payment and prevailing, union-negotiated labor wage rates on construction projects.
Stevens served as head of the Ivy Hill Neighborhood Association for decades before passing the baton to the current president, Rev. Douglas E. Bell in 2018. He now remains active as the IHNA Program Coordinator.
Serving with humility and gratitude
The celebration in honor of Mr. Stevens is indeed a moment of triumph. Still, it underscores the tremendous work that remains for continued progress in communities such as this and beyond. Essentially, the renaming of "Houston Stevens Way" recognizes Steven's worldview that working people have no nations and peoples' power is a work-in-progress so long as millions around the world remain economically, politically, and culturally oppressed.
We are at a moment in history where more people are homeless or displaced from the communities where they were born than ever before. At a global level, decades of US-led instability and competition with the world's ruling elites have led tens of millions of people from within Africa, across the Middle East, and even within urban metropolises such as Newark, NJ, into forced relocations from home to home, town to town, and in some cases country to country.
Just months ago, thousands of Haitian migrant refugees amassed under a bridge in Texas, only to be brutally returned to Haiti with no measure of support despite their efforts to flee the hardship they face back home—difficulties due to natural disasters such as the recent earthquake but more profoundly the man-made disasters wrought by the racist system of capitalism. In the face of this unprecedented suffering, the fact that my father has been able to remain in one home, in one stable community along with his fellow activist neighbors, when so many people live in a volatile state, is itself a tremendous cause célèbre. And Stevens, and the principles he has upheld, have provided a rock to the residents of this community.
"I'm very pleased that the community and the City Council saw fit to rename the street. It's honorary and ceremonial, of course, but I do appreciate it, and it warms my heart significantly." Content to work out of the spotlight's reach, my father says, "I'm not looking for it. I just try to be of service to the working class here."
Houston Stevens and his wife Miriam stand beneath the “Houston Stevens Way” sign on Saturday, Oct. 30, 2021 (Courtesy: Yuri Lev Studio)
Perhaps the fact that the doors to his and his wife Miriam's home have been literally "open" to the people of this community for decades is also why Stevens is an example of the kind of activism and spirit that we should all strive to offer to one another.
The pair have welcomed neighbors over for meals, cookouts, and meetings over the years. It was always about promoting familiarity and breaking down the isolation that takes place in urban societies, says my father: "If you're advocating this, then you have to do it. You've got to be open and engaging with your neighbors. So we lead by example."
Arguably the most meaningful aspect of the "Houston Stevens Way" is the belief that the movement for equality and freedom is ongoing and progressive. So, as we reflect on the achievements of such leaders as Stevens, we must also think about new ways to bring fresh perspectives, young leadership, and bold thinking into our local struggles. This way, as we all leave this earth, we can go knowing that those who are still here will advance the best of our principles while taking communities such as Ivy Hill in new directions.
We salute Mr. Stevens and the legacy that his children, fellow community denizens, and millions worldwide will carry on the difficult days and years to come.
…
About the author: Margaret Stevens is an Associate History Professor and the Director of the Urban Issues Institute at Essex County College, where civic engagement and service-learning are the key aspects of the institution’s mission and goals. She is also in the process of writing the official biography of Mayor Kenneth A. Gibson, Newark’s first African-American mayor. Stevens is a proud product of New Jersey public educational institutions, attaining her primary and secondary education in the Newark public school system and her undergraduate education at Rutgers University.