Interviewer(s): Ezell Wilson

Project: University of Houston

Omawale Lithuli Allen is a social worker case manager in Houston, Texas who works with human rights cases. He first came to Houston in 1966, to attend the University of Houston. In this interview, Allen notes the impact of the Civil Rights movement and student activism on his life as a student at the university. He discusses the various events and people who shaped his life during the racially polarized environment of the late 1960s, including Dr. Martin Luther King, efforts towards integration, and student activism groups both at the University of Houston and alliances with other groups such as at Texas Southern University. A sense of social unrest and dissent is present through his personal accounts on the TSU riot, but his narrative is focused on the importance of community building efforts within the Third Ward during this era.