Texas port erases Black neighborhood—with no plan for using the land

In 1930, White government officials in Freeport, Texas created the town’s “Negro District.”

This meant that, by law, Black residents faced a terrible choice: they either had to (1) move into an undeveloped, undesirable area that came to be known as the “East End” or (2) leave town completely. The only exception was for Black residents who lived in servants’ quarters owned by their White employers.

No reasonable person could have argued that the East End neighborhood was somehow “separate but equal” to Freeport’s White neighborhoods. Located downwind of a sulfur plant, the East End lacked paved roads, adequate sewage systems, and other basic city services.

But somehow, against all odds, the East End’s residents built a thriving community dotted by churches, schools, stores, and barbershops, all on land that they owned. Property ownership fostered generational wealth and tied families together.

Until the empire struck back.

Others have told the longer story of how White politicians systematically undermined the East End over many decades, including by refusing to perform basic government services such as fixing streets and granting construction permits in the neighborhood. (Check out Texas Monthly’s April 2020 article “How to Erase a Neighborhood.”)

This blog post recounts only the most recent political abuse aimed at the residents of the East End.

Before diving into the last chapter of the East End’s history, let’s remember something basic: government abuse happens with both left-wing and right-wing governments. We previously discussed how left-wing extremists in Austin attempted to rewrite history to deprive hundreds of affluent landowners of basic constitutional and property rights. Today’s post describes how right-wing governmental actors mistreated a minority community on the Gulf Coast. One of the law’s core purposes is to limit government power so that people can live in peace, no matter who’s in charge.

Port Freeport starts acquiring East End properties

Located in southern Brazoria County, Port Freeport is a deep-water port three miles from the mouth of the Brazos River on the Gulf of Mexico. Port Freeport has been playing the long game over the last few decades: eyeing the land in the East End as the place to expand its facilities so it could become Texas’s largest deep-water port.

The strategy was simple, sinister, and devastating.

In the beginning, the Port got its officers—including the Port’s current CEO—to buy East End land in their own names and then bulldoze the homes and businesses located on those tracts. After acquiring and clearing much of the East End, the Port came out of the shadows and offered to buy up additional acreage at low-ball prices. The Port justified its low offers on the fact that the neighborhood was emptying out and that, as a result, the remaining lots weren’t worth much. Of course, the Port failed to own up to its premeditated role in driving down land values by bulldozing the neighborhood.

Port Freeport abuses eminent domain to get what it wants

Once the Port successfully destroyed the neighborhood and drove down property values, the Port convinced most residents to accept its cheap offers to buy their land—and then used eminent domain to kick out residents who wanted to keep their homes.

Most Americans believe that they own their homes. But those people don’t understand eminent domain.

“Eminent” means “the highest.” And “domain” refers to an area controlled by a sovereign like a king or a queen—or, in America, by the governments we elect. So "eminent domain” means the government is the ultimate owner of everything, with full power to wipe away property rights subject to two requirements: (1) the taking must be for a “public use”, and (2) the taker must pay just compensation (usually measured by market value) for the property rights it takes. Courts are responsible for ensuring these constitutional requirements are met.

In the East End, the Port tried to rig the game by violating both of those requirements.

First, having bulldozed most of the neighborhood, the Port argued that the remaining homes were nearly worthless. Many property owners, unable to secure lawyers to represent them, took what was on the table and left behind their family legacies. At the time, many property owners—including our clients, the Marshall family—thought there was little they could do to fight back. It is difficult to get a lawyer to fight over the valuation of relatively modest properties. And, here, the Port’s bulldozing of the neighborhood had made the remaining properties nearly worthless. To receive “just compensation,” the landowners would have to convince the courts that the Port shouldn’t be able to benefit (that is, by paying lower compensation) due to its role in destroying the neighborhood so it could expand its facilities.

Second, the Port tricked most landowners into believing that the Port must have had a public use for taking their properties. After all, a port is a classic public use, right? It wasn’t until 2023 that the Marshalls—among the very last remaining residents—discovered the truth. Answering questions under oath, the Port’s CEO admitted that the Port (1) didn’t know what it would use the Marshalls’ land for, (2) didn’t know when it would build anything on the Marshalls’ land, conceding that construction might not happen for 10 years or more, (3) didn’t have a budget or a financing plan for building anything on their land, and (4) thought it might sell or lease the land to some unknown private company to encourage economic development in the region—even though the Texas Constitution forbids such takings.

Even so, the state trial court allowed the Port to take the Marshalls’ land.

Together with the Institute for Justice, our firm has appealed that decision to protect the Marshalls’ constitutional rights—and prevent these kinds of government abuses from happening to other families and communities in the future. As the East End saga shows, minority communities are frequent targets of eminent domain, and we cannot always trust our government to honor constitutional rights. Those rights mean nothing unless citizens and their lawyers stand up for them—and judges show the courage to vindicate the rights that they swore to protect.