4 Black Families Are Moved Into All-White Housing Project in Texas

Federal officials Thursday moved four black families into an all-white public housing complex in Vidor, Tex., that had been seized by the government when an earlier integration attempt failed.

Police stood guard as three moving vans and at least three carloads of black motorists drove up to the 74-unit complex. Housing and Urban Development officials said four families--two single women with children, one single woman and one single man--moved into the complex before dawn.

The action fulfills a promise by HUD Secretary Henry G. Cisneros last fall to compel integration at the project about 80 miles east of Houston.

Vidor is the most visible of dozens of East Texas housing projects ordered integrated by federal District Judge William Wayne Justice nearly a decade ago.

Cisneros said Vidor represents broader HUD plans to comply with the court order in coming months. “The four families who moved into the Vidor site today will be followed by other minority families in Vidor and in 69 other public housing projects in 36 counties across East Texas,” he said at a Washington news conference.

A previous attempt to integrate the Vidor complex failed in September when the last of its black residents, 37-year-old Bill Simpson, left after complaining of a hostile atmosphere. Less than 24 hours later, Simpson was shot to death in nearby Beaumont, Tex., in an incident police said was unrelated to the Vidor integration effort.

HUD took control of the complex in October, citing the failure of the local housing authority to desegregate the complex during its 36-year tenure. If Simpson had “not been intimidated out of his housing unit, he’d probably still be alive today,” Cisneros said.

Vidor, population 11,000, is a particular flash point because of the longstanding presence of the Ku Klux Klan, which has insisted that the community does not need or want integrated public housing.

But Vidor Mayor Ruth Woods has protested that the town is unfairly portrayed as a bastion of racism and that most residents are ready for the change.

“We’re just anxious to get this (integration) done and over with,” Woods has said. “Nobody wants this to work more than I do.”

Michael Lowe, the grand dragon of the Texas Ku Klux Klan, said he is planning rallies in coming months to protest federal integration of the complex.

A security system will limit access mainly to residents and their guests. One resident told reporters that the new families were welcomed by neighbors.

Hart reported from Houston and Delgado from Washington.