From Acres Homes to D.C. — Sylvester Turner's life, legacy in Houston

Born in 1954, months after the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Brown v. Board of Education ended school segregation, Sylvester Turner grew up in the Acres Homes area of northwest Houston.

"I was bused 18 miles one way, 36 miles a day to the Klein Independent School district," Turner told Houston Public Media in 2023. "The 13 black teachers that we had at the elementary-junior high, in preparation for integrating with the other school, told us ‘Hey, you are going to have to work harder.' So that was a part of the upbringing."

Turner graduated as valedictorian of Klein High School's class of 1973. He then studied political science at the University of Houston and obtained a law degree from Harvard Law School in 1980.

Bill Kelly was Turner's director of governmental relations during his mayoral terms, and he worked with him on mental health initiatives during Turner's more than 25 years in the Texas Legislature. He pointed to another one of Turner's childhood experiences as a driving force.

"People often say you never forget where you came from," Kelly said. "He lost his dad when he was 13 to a treatable form of cancer — just didn’t have insurance."

In 2007, as a representative of Northwest Houston in the Texas House, Turner authored House Bill 109 — which aimed to boost enrollment in the state's Child Health Insurance Program.

"It had been a very politically contentious issue, and he ended up at the end of the day getting 122 votes in the Texas House to be able to fix and re-enroll eligible kids in the order of magnitude of over 200,000," Kelly recalled.

Turner lost two mayoral bids, in 1991 and 2003, but ran again and won in 2015.

Rice University political scientist Bob Stein said that track record is reflective of his entire career — "persistence, tenacity and a focus on what I think you would call his agenda for Houston."

"He was never caught up in ideology or partisanship," Stein said. "He knew what policy goals he wanted to achieve, and to some extent, he would let very little get in the way of that."

As mayor from 2016 through 2023, Turner guided the city through seven federally declared disasters, including Hurricane Harvey.

"What is it people say, ‘God gives his greatest challenges to those who can bear it,'" Kelly said. "Well, seven federally declared disasters in eight years proved that he really thought Mayor Turner could bear a lot."

Under the Turner administration, the city adopted its first Climate Action Plan outlining goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as well as the Resilient Houston plan intended to prepare the city for future storms.

"The goal has been to build a stronger, more resilient, more sustainable setting so we've been successful at doing that," Turner told Houston Public Media in 2023. "Now, I'll never claim mission accomplished because we still have a number of things we need to do, but we are moving in the right direction, we are more prepared than when we started."

He also championed the construction of affordable housing, providing more than 7,000 multifamily units but fell short of his goal to build 3,000 single-family homes.

Kevin Strickland, founder of advocacy group Walk and Roll Houston, gives Turner high praise for his infrastructure policies — including the Houston Bike Plan.

"He was working on a paradigm shift for the city," Strickland said, pointing to transportation experts consulted by Turner "to help set a vision for the city to be less car-centric, to give options for getting around right outside of a car."

"We all know that Houston is a car city, so when you think about it, that’s a giant task to take on," Strickland said.

Current Houston Mayor John Whitmire, who served with Turner as a state lawmaker for more than 25 years, has leaned back from those policies and described members of the Turner administration as "anti-car activists." He's also criticized the heavy reliance on one-time federal funds, which contributed to a growing budget deficit.

Still, Whitmire described Turner on Wednesday as an "outstanding public official."

"It is a personal loss for me," Whitmire said. "And the reason no one knows how close we are is the mean politics of our system. We never took our disagreements personally."

Stein described the arc of the relationship between the current and former mayor as one of close colleagues who became unaligned at a critical juncture in Whitmire's career.

"The way to put this in the right context is to fundamentally understand that a lot of politics is about personal relationships, and Turner and Whitmire were very close in their days in the house together and then, of course, when John Whitmire went to the Senate, they were extremely close," Stein said.

But Turner endorsed former Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, who ultimately lost to Whitmire in a runoff, in the 2023 mayoral race.

"Politics is politics," Stein said. "Sylvester supported Sheila Jackson Lee, so you can imagine John Whitmire’s feelings about that, but I don’t think it’s gonna change the legacy. Sylvester has much to be cheered about and much to be criticized for."

Upon leaving office, Turner enjoyed a plurality of support in a poll by Houston Public Media and other organizations, showing 49% of respondents held a favorable view of his time in office, 28% held a negative view and 23% percent expressed neutrality.

Turner filled the seat of the late Sheila Jackson Lee in January.

His last public messages focused on potential cuts to Medicaid by highlighting Angela Hernandez, a constituent from his district whose daughter has a rare genetic disorder.

"Please, let people know, don't mess with Medicaid," Turner said in his final video message.

Bill Kelly traced that final post back to his father's preventable death from cancer.

"It did not surprise me at all that his last kind of official act was being able to have someone at the State of the Union who depended on Medicaid, and putting them in the spotlight," Kelly said. "That is who he was — to be able to elevate those in his community that needed help, that’s really who he was and what his public service was about."

According to Turner's family, he was taken to the hospital after President Donald Trump's speech to a joint session of Congress and was later released. He died at approximately 5:45 on Wednesday morning from "enduring health complications." He was 70 years old.

"Congressman Turner was the consummate public servant," Turner's family wrote. "But to us, he was our beloved father, grandfather, sibling, and relative. Thank you for your prayers."
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