In 1987, Houstonian Jon Schwartz created a documentary film, This is Our Home, It Is Not For Sale, that traced the history of Houston’s Riverside neighborhood from land grant to inner city neighborhood, and Special Collections holds a collection of records that covers the full scope of the production of the documentary film.

The finding aid for the This is Our Home, It is Not For Sale Film Collection is now available in Archon. The finding aid describes the materials in the collection, which cover fundraising activities, releases and contracts, insurance, research materials, production notes and logs, film screenings and festivals, photographs, and posters.

The documentary tells tells the story of Riverside through interviews, photos, and home movies.  Informally known as the Jewish River Oaks, Riverside became an idyllic neighborhood close to downtown.  It was an all-white neighborhood until 1952 when the first black family moved in, and white flight followed. Real estate agents working house-to-house encouraged owners to sell, but many residents resisted the inclination to move and posted yard signs stating “This is Our Home, It’s Not for Sale.”  Transformation became inevitable for a constellation of reasons.  Intrusions into the neighborhood included Highway 288 and the Harris County Psychiatric Center.  By the conclusion of the time period covered in the film (mid-1980s), Riverside was a multi-ethnic neighborhood, combining characteristics of a peaceful wooded residential area with the conflicts of an integrated urban neighborhood.

The materials in this collection, along with a  copy of the film, can be viewed in the Special Collections Reading Room.