HOUSTON — A group of actors took to the streets Thursday night to bring awareness to one of the most racially charged events in Houston's history, the 1917 Camp Logan Uprising.
Armed with prop guns and booming voices, the 13-person theater group wants your attention.
"It's an opportunity for us to interact with history," said Jefferson Pinder, the artist who created the project called Fire and Movement. "I think that's what inspires us is that this is a performance in which we don't know who our audience is."
The performance stretched 4 miles around the Memorial Park area. During World War I, it was the site of Camp Logan, a U.S. Army training camp where in 1917 African American soldiers revolted after racial tensions escalated in the city.
"One of the things I've noticed is how few people know about what happened at Camp Logan," Pinder said.
"A lot of the issues they were having were with salacious name calling...the community was also being over policed," said Ashley DeHoyos with DiverseWorks, the non-profit hosting the event.
It's a part of history the actors believe is still relevant today.
"I want people to think about this as a being a performative art piece...an event that can help people think about history and also think about the legacy of blacks in this community," Pinder said.
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