1950s, Northwest Harris County Texas, YMCA Camp Holden

In 1952 there was no camp for minority youth in Houston. Remember those days? By 1970 all the Houston Y Camps were fully integrated. What I knew in my childhood as the Bagby Y began in the early ‘50s when a property near Cypress Creek in far northwest Houston came on the market. The property lay just down the road from where our family lived. It was anchored by a large ranch-style home on 55 beautiful wooded acres, with a lake and a pool. The name changed over the years to YMCA Camp Holden, then Cypress Creek YMCA, and later the D. Bradley McWilliams YMCA at Cypress Creek. Virtually from day one, the camp was ready to use, serving primarily minority youth and organizations for over 20 years. Notably, Camp Holden hosted the first conference on interracial understanding with YMCAs in the Southwest Region of the USA, leading efforts to desegregate YMCAs across the country. (Thanks to Jennie Stephens and Gary Nicols of the YMCA of Greater Houston for filling in the blanks in my memory.) "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Martin Luther King, Jr.