Los Angeles Times feature on voting, race, and the U.S. mail, out of exurban Houston

Here's the lede for the story, by Molly Hennessy-Fiske, which is headlined "Freed slaves founded this town. Their descendants fear postal cuts threaten voting rights.":

To Black residents whose ancestors built this rural town amid cotton fields 50 miles southwest of Houston, 77451 is more than a ZIP Code.

“It’s very important for us to keep our identity. That’s our address, our ZIP Code,” said Mayor Darryl Humphrey Sr., because of “all the fighting and the work that my forefathers did.”

Kendleton began when slaves were freed in Texas in 1865 — more than two years after Emancipation. William Kendall sold them 100-acre plots of his plantation along the San Bernard River south of Houston. Many signed the land deeds with a mark because they were illiterate.

Those first settlers turned Kendleton into a “freedmen’s colony” with its own school, church, cemetery and a mercantile that contained a post office.

As the political fight over recent cuts to the U.S. Postal Service and changes to vote-by-mail plays out across the country ahead of the presidential election, it’s highlighting the vital role of post offices in rural communities such as Kendleton, where Black people have long had to fight for the right to vote.

 Kendleton's population is 380.