‘Real Housewives of Potomac’ visit Houston to honor Gizelle Bryant’s late father in park ribbon-cutting

Videographers had cameras at every angle for the ribbon-cutting in northeast Houston Tuesday morning. The park was beautiful, but the lenses were trained in the opposite direction, to where the “real housewives” were sitting.

The guest of honor at the unveiling of Curtis M. Graves Park was none other than his daughter, Gizelle Bryant, a star on the Bravo TV show “Real Housewives of Potomac.”

Curtis Graves, who died in 2023, was a civil rights leader and one of the first Black Texans elected to the state House of Representatives post-Reconstruction. Graves served three terms in the Texas House from 1967 to 1973. After an unsuccessful bid for Texas Senate, Graves worked for NASA as director of educational programs and later as director of public affairs.

“I can’t imagine what it was in the ’60s to be a Black man, to be a Black man that is fighting for rights, for equal rights,” Bryant said of her father. “I can’t imagine what it was for a Black man to be fighting for equal rights in the South.”

“Cannot imagine. I one thousand percent appreciate his courage. I appreciate his conviction. I appreciate his sacrifice. Every day of my life, I am honored, I am humbled to be Curtis Graves’ daughter.”

Harris County Commissioner Rodney Ellis unveiled the flood detention basin and surrounding trails. Alongside Ellis was state Sen. Sarah Eckhardt, whose father, Bob Eckhardt, worked with Graves while serving in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The 75-acre and $3.2 million park, which has swings, fishing and picnic areas, will get two murals and a 6-foot-tall granite statue of Graves by the end of October.

“He was just such an inspiration,” Ellis said. “I’ve researched his record, I’ve read his book. He represented and championed this community at a time when our voices and perspectives had long been ignored.”

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This article originally published at ‘Real Housewives of Potomac’ visit Houston to honor Gizelle Bryant’s late father in park ribbon-cutting.