In 2016 the City of Houston planning commission passed a resolution to have Dowling Avenue, a street bordering Emancipation Park named after Confederate soldier Richard W. Dowling, renamed to Emancipation Avenue. It was subject to approval by the city council.

Emancipation Park Conservancy formed as a 501 (c)(3).

In 2011 the city government planned to establish a capital campaign to install new facilities at the park. It spent $2 million in its own money and secured $4 million in funding from the local government corporation OST/Almeda Corridors Redevelopment Authority as well as $1 million in funding from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.

Under the Houston Historic Preservation Ordinance, Houston City Council voted unanimously to designate the park a protected historic landmark, due in large part to the efforts of the Friends of Emancipation Park to lobby for the ordinance.

In 2006 Carol Pratt Blue and Bill Milligan, natives of the Third Ward, formed “Friends of Emancipation Park” in order to revitalize the park.  The board was established in March 2007.

Urban redevelopment cleaved the Third Ward from the City of Houston via the 59 South Freeway thereby creating a physical barrier and an imbalance in development and gentrification. This combined with general desegregation lead to the neglect of the Third Ward and Emancipation Park, with the last major renovation to Emancipation Park occuring in 1974.