Anna Johnson Dupree (1891–1977), businesswoman and philanthropist, was born on November 27,1891, in Carthage, Texas, the oldest of Lee and Eliza Johnson's six children. As the great-grandchild of a slaveholder and the grandchild of former slaves, she was moved by the stories of slavery she heard from her grandparents to desire to improve the lives of Blacks. In 1914 she married Clarence A. Dupree, a native of Plaquemine, Louisiana. Two years later the Dupree’s moved to Houston, where he worked as a porter at the Old Brazos Hotel and she became a beautician at the Ladies Beauty Shop.

Living simply and saving what income they could, the Duprees began to invest in real estate. In 1929 they opened the Pastime Theater on McKinney Street. In 1936, Anna built her own beauty shop, equipped with a Turkish bath, a sweatbox, and massage services. Then in 1939 the Duprees built the Eldorado Center, which included the Eldorado Ballroom, one of the first clubs for Blacks in Houston and a showplace for Black entertainment. By 1940 savings and profits from the Duprees' businesses allowed Anna to donate $20,000 toward the construction of an orphanage, the Anna Dupree Cottage of the Negro Child Center, on Solo Street in the Fifth Ward. In the mid-1940s, she donated property in Highland Heights and led a fund drive to build the Eliza Johnson Home for Aged Negroes; it opened in 1952 and was named for Anna's mother. The Duprees also donated their time to the home, cooking for its residents with food given by local groceries and businesses. They later donated the home to the city. In 1946 the Duprees donated $11,000 toward the construction of the first permanent building on the campus of Houston College for Negroes (now Texas Southern University).

The Duprees also sponsored Houston's first Little League baseball team for Blacks and raised funds for the state's only Girl Scout camp for Blacks, Camp Robinhood, at Willis. Anna Dupree had hoped her philanthropy would eventually result in the construction of what she called Welcome Acres, a development consisting of residential support services for unwed pregnant women, abandoned infants, and the mentally and physically disabled. But Welcome Acres never developed, and after C. A. Dupree died in 1959, Anna's health declined. She eventually moved into the Eliza Johnson Home, where she died on February 19, 1977. Her body was donated to medical research.

Excerpt from https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/dupree-anna-johnson