Patricia Smith Prather Collection

Historian, author, co-founder and Executive Director of the Texas Trailblazer Preservation Association, Patricia Smith Prather has dedicated her career to preserving the legacies of the African American presence to Texas history. She was born in 1943 in Houston Texas at the Houston Negro Hospital, now known as Riverside General Hospital. Her parents, Clifford F. Smith Jr. and Hortense Dugar Smith, are both deceased. She has one sister, Brenda Smith Long. She graduated from Phillis Wheatley High School in Houston Texas, Class of 1960. Four years later she was awarded a B.S. Degree in Biology by Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. After graduating from college she moved to Washington D. C. and worked in public relations and communications for a number of organizations including the National Business League, The Associated General Contractors of America and the Republican National Committee. Also, many of her articles were published in “Black Viewpoint” which she edited in the 1970’s.

Ms. Smith Prather returned to her hometown of Houston, Texas in 1977 and worked in the Public Relations Department for Exxon Company U.S.A. In 1990, she cofounded the Texas Trailblazer Preservation Association, a non-profit organization with the mission of preserving Houston and Texas African American History. She is editor of the organizations’ series of biographical profiles, “The Texas Trailblazer Series." She is also coauthor of the book, From Slave To Statesman: the Legacy of Joshua Houston, Servant to Sam Houston, and the author of numerous articles for the Houston Chronicle, Who’s Who in Black Houston, Texas Highway Magazine and American Legacy, a national magazine. She currently resides in Houston, Texas where she continues her work on the “Texas Trailblazer Series” and has two children, Keiba Holt Stevenson and Robert F. Prather Jr.