Houston Blue offers the first comprehensive history of one of the nation’s largest police forces, the Houston Police Department. Through extensive archival research and more than one hundred interviews with prominent Houston police figures, politicians, news reporters, attorneys, and others, authors Mitchel P. Roth and Tom Kennedy chronicle the development of policing in the Bayou City from its days as a grimy trading post in the 1830s to its current status as the nation’s fourth largest city. Prominent historical figures who have brushed shoulders with Houston’s Finest over the past 175 years include Houdini, Teddy Roosevelt and his Rough Riders, O. Henry, former Texas Ranger Frank Hamer, hatchet wielding temperance leader Carrie Nation, the Hilton Siamese Twins, blues musician Leadbelly, oilman Silver Dollar Jim West, and many others. The Houston Police Department was one of the first cities in the South to adopt fingerprinting as an identification system and use the polygraph test, and under the leadership of its first African American police chief, Lee Brown, put the theory of neighborhood oriented policing into practice in the 1980s. The force has been embroiled in controversy and high profile criminal cases as well. Among the cases chronicled in the book are …

Interview with E. Maurice Keathely, an employee of Prudential Insurance from Houston, Texas, who was involved in the Kaiser-Prudential joint venture. Keahtley discusses his educational background, work at Prudential, his responsibilities with "Kai-Pru", the value and benefits of the venture, key members of the companies, the financial arrangement and organization of the venture, marketing, HMO's, inter-company cooperation, difficulties and criticisms, and the Texas Medical Association.

Interview with Michael Hurd, a journalist and member of the Texas Black History Preservation Project from Houston, Texas. Hurd discusses growing up in Texarkana and Houston, his education and service in the Air Force, work with the Houston Post and USA Today, Juneteenth, researching black history, the Texas Black History Preservation Project and related efforts, being an historian, the history of Juneteenth and emancipation in Texas, and civil rights. In appendix are photographs of Hurd, clippings of his reporting, and URLs to videos he was involved in.

Interview with Carl Denmon, African-American alumnus of North Texas State University. The interview includes Denmon's personal experiences about childhood in Houston, Texas and undergraduate education at Wiley College. Additionally, Denmon discusses his employment as band director at Fred Moore High School in Denton, graduate studies in Music and Education at NTSU, his career with and retirement from Dallas County Community College, and his perceptions of changes in Denton and at North Texas over forty years.

Interview with salesperson Marla Bullard. The interview includes Bullard's personal experiences about the Texas International Pop Festival. Bullard talks about her Mexican-American family values, her use of drugs and alcohol in high school, her attitudes toward the Vietnam War, hippie activities at Allen's Landing in Houston, Texas, conflicts between rednecks and hippies, her attraction to the musical groups of the Sixties, the importance of lyrics in Sixties music, her decision to attend the festival, drug use at the festival, Janis Joplin's performance, and the influence of the festival on her life.

Interview with John J. Clemens. The interview includes Clemens' personal experiences about childhood and early adulthood in Houston, Texas, World War II-era service in the U.S. Navy, serving aboard USS Wren in the Pacific Theater, and piloting a ship into Tokyo Bay immediately following the Japanese surrender. Clemens speaks about convoy missions across the Atlantic Ocean, the January 4, 1944 sinking of the USS Turner while moored in New York Harbor and the court of inquiry regarding the sinking, actions in the Aleutian Islands, Attu, Okinawa, and Philippine campaigns and anti-kamikaze warfare while aboard the USS Wren, and the effects that Allied bombing had on Tokyo.

Interview with George Holcombe, a Methodist pastor and civil rights activist from Houston, Texas, and his wife and associate Wanda, from Sims, Texas. The Holcombes discuss their family origins, initial exposure to racial problems and civil rights, their respective educations, pastoral work in Baton Rouge and Chicago, the Ku Klux Klan and dangers encountered, work with the Ecumenical Institute of Chicago and empowering black communities, the 1968 Chicago riots, Fifth City, and similar work in Australia and the Philippines.

Interview with Travis Womack Jr., a Army WWII veteran from Marshall, Texas, who served with the 307th Airborne Engineer Battalion, 82nd Airborne Division. Womack discusses his family, education, basic and airborne training, deployment to Morocco and movement through North Africa, the invasion of Sicily, the Battle of San Pietro, the Anzio campaign, going to England, marrying, fighting in Operation Market Garden, the Battle of the Bulge, disguised German troops, and the end of the war. In appendix is a detailed account of the Italian campaign written by Womack.

Interview with Bruce Monroe from San Antonio, Texas. Monroe discusses attending Texas A&M, coming out, the gay scene in Houston and Florida, the start of the AIDS epidemic, living in Dallas and work with the Dallas Gay Alliance, becoming president of the DGA, changing its name, the Dallas Buyers Club, work in Washington DC, living with HIV, Dallas Way, and art.

Changing Perspectives charts the pivotal period in Houston’s history when Jewish and Black leadership eventually came together to work for positive change. This is a story of two communities, both of which struggled to claim the rights and privileges they desired. Previous scholars of Southern Jewish history have argued that Black-Jewish relations did not exist in the South. However, during the 1930s to the 1980s, Jews and Blacks in Houston interacted in diverse and oftentimes surprising ways. The distance between Houston’s Jews and Blacks diminished after changing demographics, the end of segregation, city redistricting, and the emergence of Black political power. Allison Schottenstein shows that Black-Jewish relations did exist during the Long Civil Rights Movement in Houston.

Interview with Gale E. Nevill, a Army WWII veteran from Houston, Texas. Nevill discusses his family background and upbringing, jobs in the oil business, joining the National Guard, attending Rice University, getting commissioned, overseeing a Civilian Conservation Corps camp, working through the Depression, activation and assignment to 6th Army HQ, deployment to Brisbane, 6th Army operations in the South Pacific and Philippines, the end of the war and life afterwards.