THE TEXIANS AND THE TEXANS
THE
AFRO­AMERICAN
TEXANS
THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS
INSTITUTE OF TEXAN CULTURES
AT SAN ANTONIO
THE TEXIANS AND TEXANS
A series dealing with the many peoples who have contributed to
the history and heritage of Texas. Now in print:
Pamphlets-The Indian Texans, The German Texans, The Nor­wegian
Texans, The Mexican Texans (in English), Los Tejanos
Mexicanos (in Spanish), The Spanish Texans, The Polish Texans,
The Czech Texans, The French Texans, The Italian Texans, The
Greek Texans, The Jewish Texans, The Syrian and Lebanese Tex­ans,
The Afro-American Texans, The Belgian Texans, The Swiss
Texans, The Chinese Texans and The Anglo-American Texans.
Books-The Irish Texans, The Danish Texans and The German
T exans.
This pamphlet was in production at the time of the death of R.
Henderson Shuffler, Executive Director of The Institute of Texan
Cultures from its beginning until 1975. The Afro-American Tex­ans
is dedicated to his leadership, creativity and support in many
such productions.
The Afro-American Texans
Principal Research er: Melvin M. Sance Jr.
© 1975: The University of Texas
Institute of Texan Cultures at San Antonio
Jack R. Maguire, Executive Director
Pat Maguire, Director of Publications and
Coordinator of Programs
First Edition, Third Printing, 1981
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 76-354596
International Standard Book Number 0-933164-90-4
Cover illustration: Unidentified black woman.
Courtesy of Mrs. Annie R. Lee
Inside cover: Sunday School of Mt. Zion First Baptist Church.
Courtesy of Mt. Zion First Baptist Church, San Antonio
Back cover: N egro cowboys, Bonham, Texas, c. 1910.
Library of Congress, E. E. Smith Collection
This publication was made possible, in part, by a grant from the
HOUSTON ENDOWMENT, INC.
Printed in the United States of America.
I
INTRODUCTION
The Afro-American is no newcomer to
Texas. He arrived with the first Euro­peans,
continued to come in growing
numbers, and today makes up about
twelve percent of the state's population.
For centuries before Europeans discovered
Texas, the Spaniards and Moors had
fought each other. Captives were en­slaved
by both sides. The Spanish explor­ers
brought black Moorish slaves with
them to Texas, and many of them stayed.
After a century of slavery in the New
World, a change of language, exposure
to new cultures, and generations of mis­cegenation,
the African who was brought
to this country is no longer an African.
He is a new being: a national in the
country of his allegiance but, by race, an
Afro-American.
There were Africans in the Americas
as soon as there were "Americas," of
course, and the terms that refer to race
have changed. The Spanish term "Negro"
is often associated with derogatory terms
having their origin in slavery. In the
1960's the young black began to use the
terms "black" and "Afro-American" to
denote race.
Black is a universal term of color which
could be applied to many nationalities
worldwide. As often used, it is a philos­ophy,
an attempt at self-identification
rather than an indicator of race.
No close definition is here attempted.
"Afro-American" is used for the black
race in America whose origin was ulti­mately
Africa; "African" refers to a na­tive
of Africa; "black" and "Negro" are
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A FREE NEGRO FAMILY IN SPANISH TEXAS, BY BRUCE MARSHALL fTC Collection
used interchangeably in their historical
context with Afro-American.
The black experience in the American
environment represents a record of sur­vival
despite bondage; a record of out­standing
achievements and contributions
to the American heritage, despite great
odds. Blacks were with the Spanish in the
first explorations of New Spain. The first
black known by name to set foot on Texas
soil came in 1528 with remnants of the
Narvaez Expedition. However, as early as
1519 Alonzo de Pineda, a lieutenant un­der
Francisco Garay, was commissioned
to explore and map the Gulf coast of
Texas from Florida to Vera Cruz. After
lNSTJTUTE OF. TEXAN CUL"TURE&
completing his mISSIOn, Pineda landed
near the mouth of the Rio Grande while
his ships were being prepared for the
return to Jamaica.
Acting on information given to him
by Pineda, Garay sent in 1520 an expedi­tion
under Diego de Camargo which was
intended to seize the lands up the Rio
Grande. This effort failed when Indians
attacked and repulsed them. Blacks may
have been left behind from these or later
Spanish explorations since the Escandon
Expedition of 1738 reported seeing a
mixed race of Negro-Indians at the mouth
of the Rio Grande.
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EST EVAN IN TEXAS, BY M. A. EMANUEL
ESTEBAN
1528
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There is no more eXCItmg story in the
annals of exploration than that of the
Narvaez Expedition and its shipwrecked
survivors: Cabeza de Vaca, his compan­ions
Dorantes and Castillo, and the slave
Esteban-first black man known by name
to have probed the region north of the
Rio Grande. Cast ashore near Galveston
Island in 1528, the men were enslaved
by the Indians. Soon, however, they began
utilizing rudimentary medical knowledge
to heal the afflicted. Esteban had a gift
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for languages and was "in constant con­versation"
with the native tribes. His in­fluence
over them grew steadily.
After eight years of incredible hardship
the four adventurers made their way over
desert and mountain to Culiacan on the
Pacific coast of Mexico and became the
first Europeans to cross the American
Southwest. They were then escorted to
the viceroy, Antonio de Mendoza, in Mex­ico
City, where they told wondrous tales
about seven cities of gold to gullible
Spanish adventurers.
Esteban, born in Azamores, Morocco,
at the turn of the fifteenth century, was
the servant of Dorantes. He was about
thirty when he and his master joined the
Narvaez Expedition to explore the north­ern
coast of the Mexican Gulf. Later
Dorantes sold Esteban to Mendoza. In
1539 the viceroy sent Fray Marcos de
Niza in search of the legendary cities;
Esteban and some friendly Indians went
ahead with instructions to send back
wooden crosses whose size would indicate
the importance of the discovery. When de
Niza received the second cross, he raced
forward to join the advance element.
Esteban, meanwhile, had resumed his
earlier role as a medicine man. His fol­lowers
grew steadily in number, and so
did his lust for gold and glory. In his
impatience he proceeded without the friar
to the Zuni Indian pueblo of Hawikuh,
where he ignored a warning not to enter .
The Zunis killed him. The stories and
legends that arose from Esteban's adven­tures
sparked other explorations into
Mexico's northern realm and eventually
resulted in the opening of the American
Southwest. A year later several blacks
accompanied Coronado on his sweep across
New Mexico and west Texas.
SPANISH TEXAS
From Esteban's arrival in 1528 to 1690,
blacks were in the vanguard of Spanish
conquest. By 1791 they numbered twenty­four
percent of the Texas population, then
over 4000 people, including Spaniards,
mission Indians, and mestizos. There
were a few Spanish slave holders, and
until 1793 the slave population in Span-
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FRONTIER SAN ANTONIO, BY BRUCE MARSHALL
ish Texas never exceeded one hundred
individuals. From the census records one
cannot tell the race of these slaves.
The social structure of Spanish Texas
was such that, despite slavery, those
blacks who had been freed were accepted
socially and were free to work in the
professions or skilled trades as they de­sired,
with one exception-blacks were
not permitted to hold governmental posi­tions.
They were free to marry whomever
they chose, and records reveal that inter­racial
marriage was common.
For nearly 200 years after America
was discovered, Spain was unchallenged
in her claim to Texas. The several ex­plorations
which she sent across the ter-
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ritory were sufficient to effect a valid
claim, but it was not until 1685 when the
French established a settlement near Mat­agorda
Bay that she reacted vigorously to
secure her claim. She did this by creating
a network of presidios and missions fol­lowed
by civil settlement.
At first, Spain believed that the great­est
threat to her sovereignty in New Spain
was the French settlement to the east,
and that the most probable points of
French contact would be the northeastern
boundary along the Sabine and the coast
below the Presidio La Bahia. Spain es­tablished
presidios and missions largely
in east Texas at first and later in central
Texas. Convinced that these measures
alone would not be sufficient to stop the
French expansion, Spain began to colonize
Texas with Spanish families.
Afro-Americans were among the early
settlers. The records of the presidios and
missions show the makeup of the early
Texas population, although these records
are variable in quality and accuracy.
The caste or race of an individual changes
depending on the care exercised by the
census taker. For example: in 1790, Fran­cisco
Povedano was listed as "Spanish"
and married to Maria Olivares; in 1792,
Francisco is listed as "Mulatto," occupa­tion
blacksmith, wife Maria Olivares,
Spaniard; in 1793, Francisco is listed as
being "Indian," a blacksmith, married to
Maria Luzgarda de Olivares, Spaniard.
Confusing as this is, it is clear that there
were many blacks in Spanish Texas.
In 1778, local records show that among
the presidios, villas, and the five missions
around San Antonio there were 514
families: 759 men, 613 women, 373 boys,
300 girls, 4 male slaves, and 11 female
slaves, totalling 2,060 persons. Of the
men, 324 were Spanish, 268 Indians, 16
mestizos, 151 of "broken color" or blacks.
Free blacks were numerous, and their
means of livelihood were not limited to
farming: they were merchants, teachers,
shoemakers, carpenters, teamsters, min­ers,
laborers, and domestic workers.
Thus the situation in Texas remained
until the vanguard of Anglo-American
dominance appeared in a series of filibus­tering
missions beginning in the early
nineteenth century.
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KIAMATA LONG, BY JOHN ROGERS
KIAMATA
1820
Kiamata Long, commonly called Kian,
was a young slave girl belonging to Dr.
and Mrs. James Long. She was brought
from Louisiana as Mrs. Long followed her
husband on his second filibustering ex­pedition
to Texas in 1820. Kian served
as a companion for the Long's five-year­old
daughter, Ann, as the little group
waited two years on Bolivar Point for
Dr. Long's return. The weather was sev-fTC
Collection
ere, the Karankawa Indians were threat­ening,
and the long wait was in vain
because Long was captured and later
killed in Mexico City.
The Bolivar survivors were rescued,
however, by some early arriving members
of Stephen F. Austin's colony. After a
brief respite in the United States Jane,
her daughters, and Kian returned to Texas
where they became members of Austin's
Old Three Hundred.
At Brazoria Mrs. Long and Kian opened
and operated a boarding house. They did
all the work themselves, including the
laundry. Five years later Kian accom­panied
Jane to a new plantation home
at Richmond. The plantation prospered
and life became somewhat easier for the
two women.
Kian became the mother of four-two
sons and two daughters. Three genera­tions
of her family served Mrs. Long:
Kian herself, her daughter, and her grand­daughter.
A son, Jim Long, was an over­seer
on the Long plantation at Richmond.
He died in San Antonio in the 1890's.
Another grandson, Henry C. Breed, be­came
a veteran peace officer on the Hous­ton
police force.
BLACKS IN AUSTIN'S
COLONY
Moses Austin rode into San Antonio with
most of the capital he possessed, including
the gray horse he was riding, a Negro
servant astride a mule, and fifty dollars
in cash. The black man was the most val­uable
capital asset, being worth an esti­mated
six hundred dollars on the open
market. Austin was seeking a Spanish
land grant and permission to bring in
colonists. However it was the astute
Stephen F. Austin whose fate it became
to consummate his father's grant in 1821.
Most of the settlers who came with Aus­tin,
and those who came later, arrived
from the southern United States where
the institution of slavery had been long
esta blished.
Under Mexican law a free Negro had
all the legal and political rights of citizen-
"THE MARCH TO THE MASSACRE," BY A. J. HOUSTON
ship. He could own lands, amass wealth,
hold office, and marry whom he pleased.
The frontier society of pre-revolutionary
Texas generally accepted any individual
on his personal merit. Records show that
there were then no strong social bars
against intermarriage. But the develop­ment
of this vast, new land required
cheap or free labor to boost its plantation­based
economy.
Slavery filled this requirement. The
Mexican government adopted an expedi­ent
attitude toward the enforcement of its
anti-slave laws which allowed the Ameri­cans
to circumvent them. As slave, the
Afro-American contributed, even though
unwillingly, to the growth of agriculture
and the cattle industry in pioneer Texas,
working side by side with white land­owners.
Later, as a freedman, he used
skills learned in slavery to survive.
Texas State Library
THE TEXAS REVOLUTION
1835
The war for Texan independence offi­cially
began on October 2, 1835, when
Mexican troops confronted the Texans
at Gonzales with the intent of taking war
supplies. In this effort they were defeated.
Various correspondence committees that
had been organized within the colonies
began sounding the alarm that the Mexi­can
Army was on the move. The call went
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out for volunteers to rally to the de­fense
of Texas. Blacks and whites alike
responded. Among the blacks were Hend­rick
Arnolq, Samuel McCullough, Jr.,
Greenbury Logan, Joe Travis, Maxlin
Smith. Free black colonists and slaves
fought by the side of white colonists for
the establishment of a n ew Republic.
WILLIAM GOYENS
William Goyens became one of the first
rich Texans. That he accomplished this
in primitive land with an undeveloped
economy was itself a remarkable achieve­ment.
But he was a Negro, and the laws
of the Texas Republic prohibited members
of his race from owning property. Bill
Goyens, however, was no ordinary man.
A North Carolina native, he was born
in 1794; his father was a free mulatto
and his mother was white. By 1820 he
was in Nacogdoches where he spent the
rest of his life as a blacksmith, wagon
manufacturer, freight hauler, mill own­er,
land speculator, and planter. He was
assisted in his enterprises by both Negro
and white laborers.
In 1832 he married Mrs. Mary Sibley,
a white woman from Georgia whose kins­men
were reported well pleased with their
in-law. Undoubtedly Goyens found in
Spanish Texas a climate of greater social
and economic freedom. Once, in 1826,
he successfully staved off an attempt to
sell him into slavery. His basic source of
wealth was his blacksmith shop, but he
was constantly buying, selling, and trad­ing
land. He also manufactured wagons
and used them to haul freight between
WILLIAM GOYENS AT NACOGDOCHES, BY M . A. EMANUEL fTC Collection
Nacogdoches and Natchitoches, Louisiana.
By 1832 Goyens had obtained owner­ship
of a tract four miles west of N acog­doches
on EI Camino Real. Here he built
a handsome two storey house. In 1835
while the Mexican-Texan conflict was
building to a climax, Goyens, who also
spoke Spanish and several Indian dialects,
was sent by Sam Houston as an envoy
to the Cherokee Indian tribe to try to
prevent them from forming an alliance
with the Mexican forces. His close ties
with the east Texas Indians proved a
valuable asset to the young Republic after
independence was established.
Goyens and his wife died in 1856, at
the height of national debate over slavery.
Adept in human relationships, he used
his great natural abilities to achieve both
respect and personal wealth.
SAMUEL
MC CULLOUGH. JR.
Samuel McCullough, Jr., bore the distinc­tion
of being one of the first whose blood
was shed in the war for Texan independ­ence.
He had enlisted as a member of
Captain James Collingsworth's company
at Matagorda in October, 1835. These
forty-seven volunteers marched on Vic­toria
then proceeded to Goliad, believing
they would have no trouble dislodging
SAMUEL MC CULLOUGH, BY KERMIT OLIVER Texas Southern University
the one hundred Mexican troops stationed
there. The Texans stormed the garrison
on October 9. Their only casualty was
McCullough, who suffered a severe shoul­der
wound that left him an invalid for
a year and a cripple for life.
Samuel McCullough, Jr., a free Negro,
migrated to Jackson County, Texas, in
1835 with his white father, Samuel, Sr.,
two black women, Peggy and Rose, three
daughters of Samuel, Sr.: Harriet, Jane,
and Mahaly, and a free Negro girl named
Ulde. Samuel, Jr., married Mary Lorena
Vess in 1837, and they became the par­ents
of three children. The laws of the
Republic ordered free Negroes to leave
Texas, unless special dispensation was
granted to an individual. McCullough
filed a petition with Congress reminding
them of his service in the revolution and
asking permission to remain. In recom­mending
approval, a House committee
report declared:
"This individual was among the first
to shed his blood in the War of Independ­ence,
such being the case, your committee
is averse to his removal from the bosom
of the nation. Such a procedure would,
in the opinion of your committee, be
worthy of the condemnation of all en­lightened
nations."
HENDRICK ARNOLD
When Texan volunteers prepared to
drive Mexican troops from San Antonio
in December, 1835, the attacking forces
were organized into two divisions-one
commanded by Colonel Francis W. John­son
and the other by Colonel Ben Milam.
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HENDRICK ARNOLD AT THE SEIGE OF BEXAR, BY M. A. EMANUEL ITC Collection
Serving as guide for Johnson's group was
the noted scout Erastus "Deaf" Smith;
for Miliam's group, Hendrick Arnold.
Milam's men refused to move until Hend­rick
Arnold could return from a hunting
trip to lead them in.
Early on the morning of December 5,
the Texas army, three hundred strong,
moved against a well entrenched Mexican
force three times its size, and backed
with thirty pieces of artillery. Progress
was slow and bloody, and on the second
day of battle Ben Milam was killed by
a sniper. With redoubled effort the Texans
finally reached the enemy's Military
Plaza stronghold on the ninth and re­ceived
the Mexican surrender the follow­ing
day. Colonel Johnson had high praise
for his troops and singled out Hendrick
Arnold, among others, for having "per­formed
important service." No mention
was made that Arnold was a Negro; that
fact was already well known in Texas.
In 1826 his Anglo grandmother, Cath­erine,
had emigrated from Mississippi to
Texas with her son Daniel and his two
sons, Hendrick and Holly, born of a Negro
woman. The family settled on the Brazos
River in Stephen F. Austin's colony. Soon
after the capture of Bexar young Hendrick
was married to a San Antonio girl of An­glo-
Mexican ancestry, her father being
the noted scout, Erastus "Deaf" Smith.
The groom served with distinction in his
father-in-Iaw's spy company during the
San Jacinto campaign.
Although Texas law then prohibited
Negro freedmen from remaining in the
Republic without congressional consent,
and denied those who remained the right
to own land, Hendrick Arnold stayed on.
There is no record that he ever asked or
received permission to remain in the coun­try
he helped to free. It is recorded, how­ever,
that he was granted 640 acres of
land for his service at the Siege of Bexar.
Arnold made his home at San Antonio
where he operated a grist mill. A portion
of that mill stands today near Mission San
Juan. He became a victim of the cholera
epidemic which swept Bexar County in
1849. His grave rests on the banks of
the Medina River southwest of San An­tonio.
NEGRO·SEMINOLE
INDIAN MIGRATION
1848
For a number of years, many Negro slaves
ran away to Florida and lived among the
Seminole Indians. Eventually, they inter­married.
When the federal government
moved these Negro-Seminole Indians to
the reservation near Fort Sill, Oklahoma,
in 1848, they ran into prejudices. Some
of them were kidnapped and sold into
slavery. In 1849, Chief John Horse led a
group of Negro-Seminoles across Texas.
They settled on both sides of the Rio
Grande, living alternately in Mexico and
Texas between 1850 and 1875. In the
early period of migration, they lived near
Eagle Pass, Texas, and Piedras Negras,
Mexico. Descendants of Chief John Horse
and his band still live in south Texas,
near Brackettville. The chief's grandson,
the late John Jefferson, was a Negro­Seminole
Indian Scout with the 10th U.S.
Cavalry. Chief John Horse was described
as a large, tall, handsome, and bold man
who wore a turban, bracelets, skirts, and
leggings. He was said to be a daring horse­man.
He died in Eagle Pass in 1877.
THE WILSON POTTERS
1857
In frontier settlements, necessary house­hold
utensils such as clay jars and jugs
were difficult to obtain. In 1857 the Rev.
John Wilson, a Virginia native, came to
Texas by way of Missouri and supple­mented
his income with a pottery business
in Seguin. Two of his slaves, Hiram and
J ames, were taught the craft by a pair of
Englishmen named Parker and Lyons.
After emancipation Hiram Wilson
opened his own pottery making shop in
the Capote hills. For a time he was as­sisted
by the son of James Wilson. His
goods bore the mark of "H. Wilson & Co."
and were marketed throughout much of
central and west Texas.
Wilson found the right kind of clay
in the Capote hills area ten miles east HIRAM WILSON, SR. Courtesy of Henry F. Wilson
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of Seguin. Most of the tools used in this
process were made of wood, although they
later had their implements forged by the
Alamo Iron Works. The pottery was fired
in kilns built in the ground. According
to the son of James Wilson, the pottery
could only be made between March and
September, otherwise cold weather af­fected
the proper consistency of the clay.
Clay would be dug, however, and placed
in large vats until the arrival of spring,
when it would be mixed with water and
kneaded to the right texture.
Hiram's products are most readily iden­tified
by handles which resemble inverted
horse shoes. Late in life Hiram Wilson
became a Baptist minister and founded
the Capote Baptist Church which still
stands. He died in Capote in 1886.
EVOLUTION OF THE
BLACK CHURCH
The early black church served as a place
of worship, but also, because it was a
place where blacks could gather at least
once a week and socialize, it became
the vehicle for motivating and establish­ing
black schools.
The spirituals and gospels that have
been handed down from generations of
Afro-Americans are but two examples of
an indigenous black culture. The religious
songs that were taught slaves by Anglo­Americans
soon gave way to music that
sprang from hope and a faith in the
deliverance from bondage.
These plaintive songs were the cry of
men who wanted to be looked upon and
accepted as human beings in the land
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FREEDMEN'S SCHOOL
which was now their home by reasons of
birth, the contributions which they were
making to its growth, and the blood
which they shed to help maintain its
freedom.
With the end of the Civil War, the
black church, an already established in­stitution,
became a leader in preparing
blacks to assume the freedoms that had
been granted them. The first black schools
were formed through Freedmen's Aid So­cieties
which at first were organized with­in
the church structure.
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THE APPROACH OF
CIVIL WAR
The concept of Afro-American inferiority
was widely accepted. The government of
the Republic, which had solicited and
accepted the assistance of free blacks
and slaves alike in its defense, chose to
maintain slavery through its constitution
which was adopted in 1845. "All persons
of color who were slaves for life previous
to their emigration to Texas, and who are
now in bondage, shall remain in the like
state of servitude." Nevertheless, many
petitions by free blacks to maintain their
freedom and property were honored.
From 1836 to 1845 the Republic pos­sessed
a planter society and was, there­fore,
still dependent upon slave labor.
Because slaves and free blacks existed side
by side, and because dual standards were
applied to these groups, there was dis­content
and unrest among the slaves. They
envied the limited freedom of the free
blacks. Relationships between blacks and
whites became increasingly strained. By
the 1850's the North's increasing anti­slavery
attitude had begun to divide the
country into pro- and anti-slavery fac­tions.
By 1861, the issue had become a
part of a civil war.
Blacks in the North were employed
in separately organized units in the war
effort. In the South, they remained un­armed.
Instead, they were kept at home
to tend the farm and grow food and fiber
to sustain the Confederate Army. They
also cared for the plantation owner's fam­ily.
There are many recorded instances
where slaves gave their lives trying to
protect these families when Union forces
overran Confederate lines.
MILTON M. HOLLAND
1864
Milton M. Holland was the first black
Texan to win the Medal of Honor. He was
born August 1,1844, on a small farm near
Carthage in Panola County, Texas. Ap­parently
he moved to Ohio at an early
age, for he was attending school in Athens
County when the first call came for Union
Army volunteers in 1861. He was rejected
MILTON HOLLAND, BY BRUCE MARSHALL
because of his youth. Undaunted, he ob­tained
civilian employment in the Quar­termaster
Corps. He served in this capa­city
until he was mustered into the Union
forces on June 22, 1863, at Delaware,
Ohio. Assigned to the Fifth United States
Colored Troops commanded by General
Benjamin F. Butler, Holland saw con­siderable
action in the swamps of North
Carolina "capturing forage and eman­cipating
slaves" under the recent Eman­cipation
Proclamation.
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As First Sergeant of Company "C,"
Holland was with the James River fleet
in its advance on Richmond when his
company was ordered to make the at­tack.
They struck the first blow at Peters­burg
by capturing the Confederate flag,
the signal station, and the officers at the
station. In September, 1864, his regiment
was in front of Richmond at Deep Bot­tom
where he, as Sergeant Major, led
his unit in the most brilliant and daring
fight of its career. With the officers having
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been killed, and he" himself wounded,
they fought a fierce battle at Chaffin's
Farm. It was here that Holland's daring
and courage earned him the Medal of
Honor.
After the war he married Virginia
Dickey in Columbus, Ohio. Later he was
employed by the United States Post Office
Department and eventually assumed an
executive position with the agency's head­quarters
in Washington, D.C. Holland
and his wife moved to a small farm near
Silver Spring, Md., where he died in 1910.
BRIT JOHNSON
1865
During a series of Indian raids in Young
County, near Fort Belknap, a number
of settlers were killed and several women
and children were carried away by Com­anches
and Kiowas. The captives included
the wife and children of Brit Johnson, a
Negro slave working as a cowhand on the
Allen Johnson ranch. This was in 1865,
and Brit spent the next two years hunting
for his wife and children in west Texas.
His master furnished him a horse and
gave him permission to go. During this
odyssey, Johnson obtained the release of
two white families being held by the
Indians. Finally, he ransomed his wife
and two children and took them safely
home. But he had aroused the enmity of
the Kiowas. In 1871, while he was driv­ing
a freight wagon to Weatherford, a
band of Kiowas surrounded and killed
him and mutilated his body. The Indians
paid dearly for their revenge; more than
100 spent cartridge shells were found
near Brit's body.
12
COTTON TEAM
EMANCIPATION
1865
The Civil War ended in April, 1865.
The following June 19, General Gordon
Granger came ashore at Galveston and
proclaimed the sovereignty of the United
States over Texas and the freedom of all
slaves. He declared all acts of secession
illegal, and he pronounced all officers
and men of the Confederacy paroled.
Despite President Lincoln's original
proclamation of January 1, 1863, Texas
Negroes were not free in fact until the end
of the war and General Granger's pro-
Century, Vol. 35, 1887
clamation of 1865. For decades after this
event the 19th of June was considered a
day of celebration by blacks. It was ac­companied
by parades, barbecues, and
dancing. Today, June 19 calls for few
celebrations, since the younger genera­tions
regard it as a reminder of genera­tions
of enslavement and the denial of
equal opportunities.
The end of the war found chaotic
conditions in the state government, con­fusion
among the freed blacks, and Con­federate
troops trying to reunite with
their families. The United States Con-
gress announced a reconstruction program
for the defeated Confederate states as a
prerequisite for reentry into the Union.
In compliance with the congressional
mandate, Texas convened its constitution­al
convention June 1, 1868. There were
nine elected black delegates: G. T. Ruby,
W. Johnson, J. McWashington, Ben O.
Watrous, C. W. Bryant, S. Curtis, M.
Kendall, and R. Long. Another black,
Sheppard Mullins, was elected to fill the
vacancy created by the death of George
Klappenback.
The problems confronting the newly­freed
Negroes were staggering. The south­ern
white population was a conquered
people. During the occupation and recon­struction
some of the growing bitterness
of the conquered toward the conqueror
was transferred toward the Afro-Ameri­can,
and the chasm became a gulf.
G. T. RUBY
1866
In reconstruction times George T. Ruby
was an influential figure on the Texas
political scene. A mulatto, he was born in
New York City about 1841. When he
was ten he moved with his family to Port­land,
Maine, where he attended public
schools. At twenty he became a Haiti­based
newspaper correspondent for The
Pine and Palm, a Boston newspaper. In
1864 Ruby appeared in New Orleans
where he took up the cause of Negro
education. After serving as principal of
a grade school, he was appointed a gen­eral
school agent for Louisiana, and be­gan
traveling about the state establishing
schools.
IQfJ---- -HIl ~rm
G. T. RUBY IN THE SENATE CHAMBER, BY M. A. EMANUEL ITC Collection
In 1866 Ruby moved to Galveston
where he became politically active in the
Republican Party and began cultivating
close ties with Edmund J. Davis, former
Union general and future Texas governor.
He became deputy customs collector and
served in that capacity until 1872. He
also edited the Freedman and provided
leadership in the Loyal Union League. In
1868 a predominantly white constituency
elected him a delegate to the state con­stitutional
convention-the so-called "Re­construction
Convention." The Republi­can-
controlled convention was faction­ridden
between conservatives and radicals
who disagreed on whether to disenfran-chise
a large number of ex-Confederates.
At first a radical, Ruby moved gradually
toward moderation and compromise. He
offered resolutions against voter intimida­tion
and bribery, but the convention tabled
them. By the end of the convention he
was so displeased with its actions that
he followed B. F. Williams in resigning.
Ruby was next elected to the Texas
Senate, where he demonstrated leadership
and a keen understanding of parliamen­tary
procedure. He introduced a number
of bills important to his Galveston con­stituents,
to Texas's economic develop­ment,
and to the establishment of the
state militia. By 1873 the Democrats had
INSTnu:rE OE TEXAN CUL TURE8
13
i
~ I I
regained control of the legislature, and
Ruby went back to New Orleans where
he renewed a newspaper career. He is
believed to have died and been buried
there.
NORRIS WRIGHT CUNEY
1869
After the Civil War, Norris Wright Cuney
became the leader of the state's Republi­can
Party which made him the most in­fluential
Negro in Texas-influence that
he wielded for the cause of human rights.
Cuney was born in his father's Sunny­side
Plantation near Hempstead in 1846.
The Cuney's had been among the early
settlers of Virginia. Following the Louisi­ana
Purchase Norris's father had immi­grated
to the territory where he became
a successful planter and prominent Whig
politician. In 1842, he moved to Texas.
Norris's mother, Adeline Stewart, was a
mulatto of Negro-Caucasian-Indian ex­traction,
and a former slave of Colonel
Philip Cuney.
The youngster was attending school in
Pennsylvania, but he quit to learn the
riverboat trade. While staying in New
Orleans he met P.B.S. Pinchback, later the
political boss of Louisiana. Cuney then
decided to enter politics and went to Gal­veston
where he studied law and became
a party worker.
He was made sergeant-at-arms for the
Texas House of Representatives in 1870,
was appointed to the Galveston School
Board in 1871, and was designated a fed­eral
customs inspector in 1872-the same
year that he attended his first national
14
NORRIS WRIGHT CUNEY Cuney, Norris Wright Cuney
I
!
political convention. He served as the
first Grand Master of the Prince Hall
Masonic Grand Lodge in 1874. Later he
became secretary of the Republican State
Executive Committee. Defeated for mayor
in 1875 and for the legislature a year
later, Cuney achieved elective office in
1882 as a city commissioner.
He was also successful in private busi­ness,
establishing a stevedoring firm that
provided jobs to black men in a field pre­viously
monopolized by whites. He was
chosen as the Republican National Com­mitteeman
from Texas in 1884, and four
years later was appointed customs col­lector
at Galveston, then the highest fed­eral
post in the state. Cuney died in 1898,
having spent his last years in a valiant
fight against the legislature's attempts to
preserve segregation as a way of life.
BLACK COMMUNIT IE S
During reconstruction the Afro-Ameri­can
Texan found himself in a dilemma.
He was not accepted in the political, eco­nomic,
and social structure of his former
white master, and for the most part he
was ill prepared to compete with other
ethnic groups for job opportunities. Many
blacks chose to migrate to the north where
they hoped to find a better life; others
chose to remain in the service of their
former masters, or to work as share­croppers.
Some individuals banded to­gether
in small colonies across the state.
Kendleton, founded in 1869, was one such
example.
Kendleton, located between Turkey
Creek and the San Bernard River on U.S.
, ;~
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KENDLETON
Highway 59, was named for William E.
Kendall who had originally purchased
the Fort Bend County tract as a planta­tion.
During reconstruction he sold the
land in small parcels to blacks, and sold
it for fifty cents to $1.50 per acre. The
community produced some notable citi­zens,
one of whom was Ben F. Williams,
a capable black legislator who had mi­grated
from Colorado County to make a
new home. Another of the first settlers
was Warner Braxton, a former slave from
Washington County. His grandson, R. V.
Braxton, is now postmaster in Kendleton.
':.
fTC Collection
The little town is no longer an all black
enclave. Other people have moved in,
and all have worked together toward com­munity
progress.
Another black settlement is Board
House. When founded in 1866, it
sprawled over five thousand acres of
Blanco County ranch land. At one time
its population exceeded four hundred, but
today fewer than eighty remain as the
young have migrated to the metropolitan
areas. Some of the other black communi­ties
that exist, or once existed, are Jake's
Colony, Sweet Home, and Cologne.
15
16
BUFFALO SOLDIERS
As a destructive civil war was being
fought, the Indians had an opportunity to
maraud extensively along the west and
southwest border of the state. West Texas
was largely uninhabited by white set­tlers
in 1870. As cattlemen and ranch ers
moved into these lands after the Civil
War, they were plagued by raids from
renegade Indians and assaults by crimi­nals.
Their only protection was from
sparsely located forts plus a handful of
Texas Rangers and militia. Under these
circumstances, Texas requested protec­tion
from the United States government.
Troops were sent, including Negro units
of the Ninth and Tenth Cavalry, and the
Twenty-fourth and Twenty-fifth Infan­try.
They were spread thinly on the thou­sand
mile border from Brownsville to
El Paso.
The test of their mettle was not long
in coming; they fought many small skirm­ishes
with Indian warriors who soon
learned respect for their fighting ability.
It was their Indian adversaries who gave
the black soldiers the name "Buffalo
Soldiers." Some say the name came from
the buffalo coats worn in winter by the
black soldiers, or because the hair of the
black soldiers resembled that of the buf­falo.
Whatever the origin, the black sol­dier
considered the name a mark of dis­tinction,
carried it with pride, and in the
case of the Tenth Cavalry, adopted the
buffalo as the central theme in its coat of
arms.
The Buffalo Soldiers, having com­pleted
their mission on the frontier, moved
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TENTH CAVALRY IN THE FIELD
to other fronts. The 10th Cavalry, how­ever,
has returned to Texas. Assigned to
the 1st Cavalry Division, the 10th changed
from horse cavalry to airborne and is
presently stationed at Fort Hood, where
it continues its proud traditions.
Courtesy of Mrs. Annie Lee
HENRY FLIPPER
1878
By any measure Henry Flipper led an
extraordinary life: he was the first black
graduate of West Point as well as the first
of his ethnic group to win recognition as
a professional engineer. Born of slave
parents at Thomasville, Georgia, in 1856,
Flipper grew up in Atlanta. In 1877 he
received his commission from West Point
and was assigned to his first post at Fort
Sill, Oklahoma, in the waning days of
Indian warfare. In 1879 he was assigned
to Fort Elliott on the last buffalo range
of the Texas Panhandle and a year later
he was stationed at Fort Davis in time to
campaign against Victorio and his Apache
band. In 1882 Flipper's military career
suddenly ended when he was dismissed
from service on grounds of alleged ir­regularities
in his handling of certain
post funds-charges which he emphatical­ly
denied.
Facing this setback with quiet dignity,
he went to EI Paso and began a thirty­seven
year career as a civil and mining
engineer in the Southwest and Mexico.
He was fascinated with the history and
folklore of the borderlands and published
articles on these subjects. He also became
an authority on southwestern land grants
and in the 1890's translated Spanish and
Mexican land law while employed by the
United States Justice Department.
In 1905 Flipper was engaged by the
fabulous Colonel William C. Greene, own­er
of the Cananea Copper mines, to search
the archives of Spain for evidence pertain­ing
to the legendary Lost Tayopa mine.
In 1908 he became a consultant to the
Sierra Mining Company owned by Sena­tor
Albert B. Fall of New Mexico.
He continued serving Fall for many
years, coming in 1919 to Washington as
an interpreter and translator for a Sen-
LT. HENRY O. FLIPPER
ate subcommittee investigating Mexican­American
relations.
Leaving government service two years
later, Flipper went to work for the Pante­pec
Oil Company in Venezuela. He
earned recognition as an outstanding
petroleum engineer, retiring in 1930 to
his old home in Atlanta.
He died in 1940 at 84, with his fondest
dream unrealized-to wear again the
uniform of an American soldier. The
army changed Flipper's discharge from
dishonorable to honorable in 1976, 36
years after his death. His remains, car-
National Archives (ITe Montags )
ried by the traditional mule-drawn wagon
followed by a riderless horse, were moved
from Atlanta's Southview to the Old Mag­nolia
Cemetery, where he was reburied
with full military honors.
EDUCATION AND
EQUALITY
1879
In keeping with the provlSlons of the
constitution, the Texas legislature passed
an Act in 1879 for the organization of a
"normal school" at Prairie View and
made it a branch of Texas A&M Univer­sity.
In 1889 the legislature changed the
17
TILLOTSON COLLEGE
name of the college to Prairie View Nor­mal
and Industrial College. Until 1947,
it remained the only state supported in­stitution
of higher learning for blacks.
Little professional training was available
to them within the state.
18
In 1946, Heman Sweatt, a black mail
carrier, made application to The Univer­sity
of Texas School of Law and was
denied admittance. His plea was taken
to the courts and again denied. Upon
appeal by Sweatt, the U.S. Supreme Court
reversed the ruling of the lower court and
blacks were admitted to all branches of
The University of Texas for the first time
Huston-Tillotson College
in 1950. During the time his case was
pending, the legislature established the
Texas State University for Negroes in
Houston. Subsequently the name of the
school at Houston was changed to Texas
Southern University.
While the black protest of the 1950's
encompassed demands for equality in oth­er
areas-public accommodations, hous­ing,
and transportation-it was primarily
concerned with breaking the barriers in
education. Despite the unrest, the pro­longed
bitterness that result~d in many
states did not occur in Texas.
"S0 JOHN" WALLACE
1885
On the west Texas cattle ranges old­timers
said of a man like Daniel Webster
. Wallace: "He'll do to ride the river with."
This meant he was a steadfast friend and
dependable neighbor who would carry
his share of the struggles and sorrows as­sociated
with pioneering.
Wallace was born to a slave mother
in Victoria County in 1860. Having no
use for the schoolroom or the cotton patch,
he rode away at fifteen to become a cow­hand.
About 1877 he went to work for
rancher Clay Mann who took a liking to
the hardworking lad and taught him the
cattle trade. Wallace also received a nick­name,
"80 John," because "80" was the
Mann ranch brand.
Under an agreement with his employ­er,
Wallace was given only five dollars
a month from his thirty dollar wage. The
remainder was set aside and invested in
his own herd for which Mann provided
free pasture. In 1885 Wallace bought
1280 acres of land in Mitchell County and
started his own operation under the DW
brand.
At twenty-five "80 John" decided he
needed a better education. He spent two
winters in a Navarro County school where
he learned to read and write. He had no
difficulty at all with math problems-as
long as they involved such matters as
land measurements, interest expense, and
the like. At school he met Laura Dee
Owens, whom he married in 1888. Even­tually
they had four children all of whom
became college graduates. Soon after his
DANIEL WEBSTER WALLACE Courtesy of Travis Branch
marnage, Wallace erected on his ranch
one of the first windmills in west Texas
at a cost of $2,500.
"80 John" was an exceptionally shrewd
businessman. By 1936 he owned 7,600
acres of grazing land. Today at 15,000
acres the ranch is operated by his daugh­ter
Hettye and her husband, Travis
Branch. There are other monuments to
the pioneer cattleman. One is the inte­grated
Daniel Webster Wallace School at
Colorado City, named in his honor. An­other
is a church which "80 John" almost
singlehandedly paid for. A third tribute
was paid by the Mitchell County His­torical
Society which a few years ago
erected a granite monument to Wallace
at his ranch. As his contemporaries had
said: "He'll do to ride the river with."
MATHEW"BONES"
H 0 0 KS
1890
Mathew Hooks always denied that he
was a cowhand. "r was just supposed to
break horses," he said. But those who
knew best never doubted that he was one
of the finest cowboys on the west Texas
plains. Affectionately known as "Bones,"
he was .born in 1867 to former slaves in
Robertson County, and was only "seven
or eight" when he started to work driving
a meat wagon for a local butcher. Later
he was employed on a nearby ranch as
driver of a chuck wagon, a job he stayed
with until he was nearly grown.
One day a Mr. Norris traded him five
ponies for his mule, and he became a
horse breaker. He followed Norris to the
19
20
MATHEW HOOKS
Pecos River country where the cowboys
kept putting him on their wild horses
"until finally they found none that I
could not ride." Bones drifted into the
Texas Panhandle when there were only
three small settlements on that illimitable
horizon: Mobeetie, Tascosa, and Claren­don
then a Methodist colony which was
nicknamed "Saint's Roost." By the stand­ards
of the first two, it probably was.
For a time Hooks made his home at
Amarillo Chamber of Commerce
Mobeetie, and later at Clarendon. For
eighteen months he operated a grocery
store near Texarkana, but returned then
to Clarendon where he continued work­ing
as a ranch hand. During this phase
of his life, Bones established the first black
church in west Texas. He not only had
to import a preacher from Fort Worth,
but also a congregation.
About 1900 he was employed as a
porter at an Amarillo hotel. He stayed
nine years and then held a similar job
on the Santa Fe Railroad for over twenty.
He used to observe the men who occupied
the chair car. "You could always tell,"
he said, "if you saw somebody with their
boots in the hatrack and their hat on the
floor, that they were from Texas." He
retired from the railroad in 1930 and
became an active civic worker in Amaril­lo.
His particular concern was the welfare
of delinquent boys. He was also the first
black to serve on a Potter County grand
Jury.
In his old age Bones attended many
pioneer gatherings. He was a charter
member of the Panhandle-Plains Histori­cal
Society, and before his death in 1951
gave many interviews in which he re­counted
scenes of a vanished age.
RICHARD HENRY BOYD
1896
Richard Henry Boyd's work in religious
education was so extensive that its im­plications
are still felt fifty years after
his death. He was born on a Mississippi
cotton plantation in 1843. When he was
six his owners, a family named Gray,
moved to Brenham, Texas. When the
Civil War began, Boyd accompanied his
master to various battlefields until Gray
and two of his sons were killed and a
third badly wounded. Boyd took the young
man home, then looked after the planta­tion.
When the last son died, Boyd began
his own life as a west Texas cowboy.
Later he worked at a Montgomery County
sawmill.
Following his marriage to Hattie Moore
in 1869, he decided to become a mInIS­ter.
With no formal education to that
time, he secured the assistance of white
friends who taught him to read and write.
After his ordination, he spent two years at
Bishop College in Marshall, then set about
organizing churches in Texas. In 1894,
he brought out the first religious litera­ture
published expressly for Negro Bap­tist
Sunday Schools. Two years later he
attended the National Baptist Convention
in St. Louis, where he was elected secre­tary
of the home mission board, based in
Nashville. In this position he was respon­sible
for establishing Baptist missionary
centers in other countries. In 1897 he
organized the National Baptist Publishing
Board, not only to furnish educational
material, but also to provide employment
for others.
Boyd proved to be a shrewd business
executive. Before his death in 1922 he
founded the first Negro newspaper in Ten­nessee,
the Nashville Globe, established
the first Negro bank in the South, and
managed a factory producing church
furniture.
SCOTT JOPLIN
1899
With the popular revival of ragtime mu­sic,
the work of pianist-composer Scott
Joplin has found a host of new admirers.
At first denounced for its honky tonk
origins, the inimitable rhythms of ragtime
first became a national rage about 1900,
shortly after publication of Maple Leaf
Rag, Joplin's greatest success.
He was born into a musical family at SCOTT JOPLIN Courtesy of Larry C. Melton
21
22
Texarkana, Texas, in 1868. His father
played fiddle and his mother the banjo.
His brothers and sisters also enjoyed mu­sic
and singing, but Scott was the most
talented. At seven he discovered the piano
and was self-taught until the age of eleven
when he received formal lessons from the
local German music teacher. This train­ing
gave Joplin a solid background in the
classical forms.
Scott left home at fourteen because his
father felt he was wasting time that
should have been spent learning a trade.
For the next fourteen years he played
piano in saloons, casinos, and honky tonks
throughout the American heartland. His
activities were mainly centered in St.
Louis and Chicago, but in 1894 he landed
in Sedalia, Missouri, where he played
the cornet in a local band and soon organ­ized
the Texas Medley Quartet which
toured widely for a couple of years. In
1899 he was at the piano of the Maple
Leaf Club in Sedalia where John Stark, a
local music publisher, overheard the in­gratiating
melody of Joplin's newest rag.
Stark suggested a business arrangement
that soon made both men wealthy. Al­though
ragtime had been played before,
Maple Leaf Rag became an international
hit.
Joplin remained unassuming and
friendly despite fame and fortune and
was always willing to aid fellow mu­sicians.
But he also suffered misfortune.
His efforts to launch into more serious
musical forms such as opera were re­buffed.
An unstable marriage collapsed
entirely after the death of a baby daugh-ter.
In 1909 he remarried and moved to
New York where he spent the next two
year<; working on a grand opera, Treemon­isha.
Joplin finally published the score
with his own money and sponsored a
performance. It was a devastating failure.
The composer was admitted to the Man­hattan
State Hospital in 1916 and died
there the following year. His ragtime
music began a revival about 1970. George
Roy Hill's hit movie, The Sting, utilized
some of Joplin's themes on the sound­track.
Soon the music was being whistled
and hummed everywhere. Recording com­panies
rushed to fill the public demand
for the lilting melodies of this tormented
genius. And in ·June, 1975, the Houston
Grand Opera Company gave the first
professional staging of Treemonisha to
an excited audience.
BILL PICKETT
1905
While working cattle on a central Texas
ranch in 1903, Bill Pickett's pony was
about to be gored by an angry cow. Des­perately
the black cowboy leaped from
his saddle and grabbed the cow's horns.
Sinking his teeth into her upper lip, he
turned loose all hand holds and threw the
animal. Another cowhand came to the
rescue with a rope to tie the critter. In
that moment the thrilling sport of bull­dogging
was born. The man who accom­plished
this amazing feat was only five
feet nine inches tall and weighed a mere
165, but he had enormous strength and
courage.
Pickett, born near Taylor about 1863,
was part Indian. Not long after his first l bulldogging experience, he was herding
longhorn cattle aboard a Kansas City­bound
train for Lee Moore of Rockdale.
A rangy steer sprinted from the bunch
with the black cowboy in hot pursuit. Em­ploying
his new technique a second time
he threw the steer and caught the atten-tion
of Moore who realized immediately
the theatrical possibilities of such an act.
The rancher began bringing his em­ployee
to roping contests and other events
where such a display of technique and
bravado could be appreciated. Later Dave
McClure became Pickett's manager and
billed him "The Dusky Demon." In 1905
the Miller family, owners of the 101
Ranch at Ponca City, Oklahoma, recruited
the daredevil performer for their wild
west shows.
The night the show opened in Madison
Square Garden, Bill's steer made a dash
for the spectator stands, with Pickett and
a young assistant named Will Rogers chas­ing
frantically. Another of Pickett's h elp­ers
was a lad named Tom Mix, later the
cowboy king of the silent movies.
Bill's tragic death occurred in 1932
when he was trampled by a half tamed
horse in the 101 corrals at Ponca City. He
lingered for eleven days, and when he
died his heartbroken friend, Zack Miller,
avowed that Pickett was "the greatest
sweat and dirt cowhand that ever lived­bar
none." This opinion was shared by
many other people, for eventually Pickett
became the first Afro-American ever in­ducted
into the Cowboy Hall of Fame in
Oklahoma City.
BILL PICKETT Cowboy Hall of Fame, Oklahoma City
JACK JOHNSON
1908
On December 26, 1908, an excited crowd
of 25,000 watched as Jack Johnson, a
youthful contender, battled heavyweight
champ Tommy Burns in Sydney, Austra­lia.
In the fourteenth round the fight was
halted by a police inspector and the world
had its first black title holder.
Johnson's fighting career began on the
waterfront of his native Galveston, where
he was born in 1878, the son of a school
janitor. His great physical strength was
largely the result of his employment as a
longshoreman. As a youngster he hitched
rides aboard freight trains and fought his
way to the East Coast. His first recorded
contest was a four round knockout of
Jim Rocks in 1897. At twenty he was
slightly more than six feet tall and en­tered
the ring at a trim 195. In 1901 he
and Joe Choynski landed in a Galveston
jail for violating Texas's anti-boxing law.
Under the not-too-watchful eye of lenient
jailers Choynski gave Johnson his first
formal instruction. The young man now
turned from a wild-swinging puncher to
a calculating fighter with a highly effec­tive
defense. The grand jury dismissed
charges against the two men, and the
resulting publicity helped bring repeal
of the state's ban on prize fighting.
Johnson's career now jumped forward
and took him throughout the country and
overseas. In 1906 he began dreaming of
the championship. He took on all comers?
working his way to the title fight. After
winning the heavyweight title, Johnson
had to defend it in a spectacular contest
23
24
JACK JOHNSON
with Jack Jefferies at Reno, Nevada, in
1910. Johnson emerged victorious in the
fifteenth round and remained the champ
until Jess Willard defeated him in a
twenty-six round match at Havana in
1915.
His last bout was a three round ex­hibition
staged when he was sixty-seven.
He was killed in a North Carolina car
wreck in 1946. Eight years later he was
inducted as a charter member of the Box­ing
Hall of Fame. In 114 professional
fights Johnson had only seven defeats.
Thirty-two of his victories were knock­outs.
Courtesy of William English
RUBE FOSTER
1909
Blacks, although originally denied entry
in white baseball leagues, produced many
outstanding players nonetheless. Rube
Foster, credited with being the first great
black pitcher, was also the first of his
race to manage a professional team. Born
in Calvert, Texas, in 1879, he began his
baseball career early in life. By 1907, he
was manager of the Texas Yellow Jackets.
He took them to Chicago to play against
the Leland Giants. Impressed with Chi­cago,
Foster returned in 1909 to lead the
Giants. It was not long before he became
part owner of the team and changed the
club's name to the Chicago American Gi­ants.
In 1912 the Giants met the Chicago
Cubs in a game which precipitated one
of the most brilliant pitching duels of that
day between Rube and Mordecai Brown.
The Giants won 1-0.
The fact that blacks were denied par­ticipation
in white leagues did not deter
Rube Foster. In 1920, together with sev­eral
other blacks, he formed the Negro
National League. It was soon followed by
the formation of the Negro American
League. Both contributed materially to
the integration of American sports.
RUBE FOSTER Johnson Publications
EMMETT J. SCOTT
1917
Morale among the black American troops
dipped seriously at the outset of World
War I, and German propagandists spread
word that the United States would not
grant democracy to its black citizens.
President Woodrow Wilson instructed his
Secretary of War, Newton D. Baker, to
correct the situation promptly. Secretary
Baker sent for Emmett J. Scott, a native
of Houston, Texas, who for nineteen years
had been Booker T. Washington's chief
aide at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama.
As Baker's special assistant and advisor
on black affairs, he set about to redress
the inequities that had antagonized and
discouraged so many fighting men. Many
thought that Scott was too much of a
gradualist to perform effectively, but he
soon proved the doubters wrong.
The job was a thankless one. Only a
month earlier, Negro soldiers in Houston
had rioted, with the loss of seventeen
lives and considerable property damage.
Scott's task was to cool the passions aris­ing
from this sad conflict. His office han­dled
thousands of discrimination com­plaints-
many of them directed at Selec­tive
Service Boards for the inequitable
treatment of Negroes. Other efforts were
aimed at establishing Reserve Officers
Training Corps units at several black
universities.
After attending public schools in Hous­ton,
Texas, Scott graduated from Wiley
College at Marshall. His interest in civic
and social welfare work caught the at­tention
of Booker T. Washington. From
JULES BLEDSOE
1897 he served for nineteen years as both
secretary-treasurer of Howard University
in Washington, D.C. and as private secre­tary
to Booker T. Washington.
JULES BLEDSOE
1927
On a late December evening in 1927, at
the old Ziegfield Theatre in New York
Courtesy of Naomi Cobb
City, Jules Bledsoe won a storm of ap­plause
when he finished singing-for the
first time in public anywhere-the im­mortal
ballad "Old Man River." This
highpoint of an illustrious career came
during the Broadway premiere of Jerome
Kern's great musical, Showboat. The song
became Bledsoe's trademark. This Texas­born
musician was not only a fine baritone
vocalist in opera, musical comedy, and
25
26
concert, but also a pianist, composer, and
film star as well.
He made his first public appearance at
the age of five when he sang a solo at
the' New Hope Baptist Church in Waco,
the city of his birth. After attending col­leges
in Marshall, Texas, and Richmond,
Virginia, he went to Columbia University
in New York, planning to become a doc­tor.
Music, however, exerted too strong
. an influence and he won a degree instead
from the Chicago Musical College, fol­lowed
by later study in Paris and Rome.
Bledsoe made his concert debut in 1924
at Aeolian Hall in New York City. Three
years later he was offered a lead role in
Showboat. Later he starred in a motion
picture version of this popular musical. In
1934 he won the title role of Louis Gruen­berg's
Emperor Jones. He took the produc­tion
to Europe and remained to sing such
operatic parts as Amanasro in Aida, Tonio
in PagZiacci, and Mephisto in Faust. He
was denied permission to sing in Nazi
Germany, but elsewhere his richly burn­ished
voice and interpretive insight made
him a welcomed and much admired fig­ure.
Bledsoe was forty-five and at the peak
of his career when he died unexpectedly
at Hollywood in 1943. He is buried in
Waco's Greenwood Cemetery under a
tombstone on which is inscribed the last
stanza of "Old Man River."
VOTING RIGHTS
Some of the most significant voting rights
cases in the nation's history have had
Texas origins. For many years, Negroes
were discouraged from joining the Demo­cratic
Party, and after it became the
state's dominant political force blacks
found themselves effectively disenfran­chised.
By the turn of the twentieth cen­tury
their political power in Texas had
become negligible.
In 1927 Dr. Lawrence A. Nixon, an
El Paso physician, filed suit against a
local election official for the right to vote
in the Democratic Primary. Nixon was
born in 1884 at Marshall where his father
was chief steward on a private railroad
car belonging to the general manager of
the Texas and pacifjc. His early child­hood
education was received at a private
school in New Orleans. Th(! family then
returned to Marshall, where young Nixon
later enrolled at Wiley College. To ful­fill
his dream of becoming a doctor, he
worked his way through Meharry Medi­cal
College in Nashville, graduating in
1906. He practiced in Marshall until
1910, and then moved to El Paso.
The United St'ates Supreme Court up­held
Dr. Nixon's right to vote in Texas
Democratic Primary elections, but the
law was then changed to allow political
parties to determine their own member­ship
without state interference. Dr. Nixon
returned to the high court in 1932 and
"won" a second time. But in this instance
the court seemed to say that the Texas
Democratic Party had erred only in al­lowing
its executive committee to estab­lish
membership rules instead of having
this done by its state convention. Quickly,
the procedural change was made.
In 1934, R. R. Grovey of Houston was
denied the use of an absentee ballot by
the Harris County Clerk, Albert Town­send.
Grovey filed suit in a justice-of-the­peace
court against the clerk for ten dol­lars
in damages for loss of his voting privi­lege.
This case followed the highly un­usual
route of moving directly to the
United States Supreme Court with no in­tervening
steps. The result was a defeat
for Negro suffrage .
But in the late 1930's there was a drama­tic
change in the membership of the high
court, and in 1940 a new case made its
way from Texas. Dr. Lonnie Smith, a
Houston dentist, was refused the right
to vote and filed suit in a federal district
court. Here, the complaint was dismissed
and an appeal was filed. The National
Association for the Advancement of Col­ored
People now entered the picture.
Their attorney was a young man named
Thurgood Marshall who, in 1967, became
the first black ever appointed to the
United States Supreme Court.
The Smith case reached the court dur­ing
the winter of 1943-44, and the decision
was emphatic: a political party was held
to be an agency of the state in its conduct
of elections that determine which can­didates
appear on the final ballot. No
longer could there be any legal means to
deny suffrage to United States citizens.
At the Texas Democratic Primary elec­tion
held the following July 22, Dr. Lon­nie
Smith was the first person in line to
vote at Houston's Precinct 48.
Years later, Dr. Nixon recalled the
long struggle that culminated in this vic­tory:
"The Negro in El Paso, as in all
other localities, means to fight always to
preserve the Constitution of the United
States and to make democracy a fact in
this land, and not a lying cloak to hide
behind."
WORLD WAR II
In 1941, the United States was once again
involved in a global war. Blacks, as had
been the case in every war of this coun­try's
involvement, rallied to arms. Also,
as had been the custom in other wars,
they were assigned to all black units com­manded
by white officers.
Not until Dr. Robert Weaver was
charged with integrating Afro-Americans
into the National Defense Program were
blacks given the opportunity to enter of­ficer
candidate schools. They emerged
as second lieutenants, and again were
assigned to all black units. This was, at
best, only partial integration. Neverthe­less,
black soldiers, sailors, and airmen
conducted themselves with the same esprit
de corps and proficiency as in previous
wars.
In 1948, President Harry Tuman issued
Executive Order 9981 directing "equality
of treatment and opportunity" in the
armed forces. Total integration in the
military service was now on the way to
becoming a reality.
DORIS MILLER
1941
When the Japanese attack on Pearl Har­bor
began at 7:55 on December 7, 1941,
Doris Miller was performing his assigned
duties in the Junior Officers mess aboard
the U.S.S. West Virginia. When the call DORIS MILLER
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27
to battle stations was sounded, twenty-two
year old Miller raced to the deck just as
Japanese torpedoes struck the Arizona and
the Oklahoma. Bombs hit the deck of Mil­ler's
ship, mortally wounding the captain.
The young sailor carried the officer to safe­ty,
then dashed to an unmanned machine
gun. In the next few minutes he shot
down four Japanese attack planes, an act
of heroism for which he was later awarded
the Navy Cross.
Miller's marksmanship may have been
the result of boyhood squirrel hunts in
the Brazos River bottom near Waco. Born
the son of a sharecropper in 1919, he dis­tinguished
himself as a star fullback on
the Moore High School football team. At
twenty he joined the United States Navy
and had nearly finished his first enlist­ment
when the Japanese attack was
launched. After his fateful day was ended
Miller received another assignment­again
as a mess attendant. In 1942 he
toured the United States selling War
Bonds; then, following a Christmas re­union
with his family, he returned to the
South Pacific aboard the carrier, Liscombe
Bay. On November 24, 1943, the ship was
sunk in the Gilbert Islands. Miller was
lost at sea.
28
His memory has been preserved in the
parks, schools, and public buildings that
are named for him. In 1972 a United
States Navy destroyer, the U.S.S. Miller,
was launched. Christening the ship was
Mrs. Henrietta Miller, the young hero's
mother. Principal speaker at the cere­monies
was Congresswoman Barbara
Jordan.
LEONARD HARMON
Courtesy of Mrs. Naunita Harmon Carroll
LEONARD R. HARMON
1942
Leonard Roy Harmon of Cuero was the
first Afro-American to have a fighting
ship bear his name. The young World
War II hero was born in 1917 and enlisted
in the Navy at twenty-two. After training
at Norfolk, he reported for duty aboard
the U.S.S. San Francisco and was assigned
as a mess attendant.
His supreme act of heroism came on
the early morning of November 13, 1942,
when the San Francisco engaged a Japa­nese
naval force in the Solomon Islands.
The American warship disabled an enemy
battleship at three thousand yards, sank
a destroyer, and damaged two other ves­sels,
but was hard hit during the engage­ment.
Steward First Class Harmon took
countless risks that morning and was
killed while evacuating the wounded from
the deck. Later, the U.S.S. San Francisco
was presented the Presidential Unit Cita­tion,
and Harmon was posthumously
awarded the Navy Cross.
In 1943 the American Navy honored
the hero by launching the U.S.S. Harmon,
a destroyer escort. The ship-christened
by the young man's mother-served near­ly
a year with the Third Fleet in the South
Pacific, then with the Seventh Fleet until
1945, receiving a total of three battle
stars for World War II service. For two
more years the U.S.S. Harmon was used
for training purposes and then joined the
Atlantic Reserve Fleet. Like her name­sake,
the ship had served with distinc­tion
and valor.
MACK H. HANNAH. JR.
1951
Mack H. Hannah, Jr., is generally re­garded
as the first black millionaire in
Houston. His success has come principal­ly
from real estate developments and the
ownership of a major savings and loan
institution. Born at Brenham in 1904,
he moved as a child with his parents to
Port Arthur where he attended public
schools. Later he graduated from Bishop
College at Marshall, then taught briefly
at Lincoln High School in Port Arthur.
Desiring a business career Hannah soon
quit teaching and opened a drugstore.
In time he sold the drugstore and was
employed as a traveling salesman for a
casket company. Soon he was financing
some of the black-owned funeral homes in
Louisiana and southeast Texas. He ac­quired
extensive real estate interests in his
hometown of Port Arthur before moving
to Houston in 1951.
While retaining his Port Arthur hold­ings,
he opened at Houston the Standard
Savings and Loan Association. He began
making loans to many blacks who could
not otherwise secure loans. In civic affairs,
Hannah served as President Lyndon B.
Johnson's personal representative in 1966
at the Economic Conference on Africa in
Niamey, Nigeria, and has served more
than twelve years on the Board of Trustees
of Texas Southern University, and in
other years as its president.
DR. J. MASON BREWER
1953
America's most noted black folklorist was
Dr. J. Mason Brewer. The son of a black
trail boss, he was born in Goliad County
and moved to Austin as a child with his
parents. Attending public schools there,
he later received an undergraduate degree
from Wiley College and did graduate
work at Indiana University. An honorary
doctorate was bestowed upon him by Paul
Quinn College.
Although he was not trained as an
historian, his book Negro Legislators of
Texas deals comprehensively with black
legislators in reconstruction Texas. He
was also justly proud of his contributions
in the field of black folklore. The late
J. Frank Dobie, himself a distinguished
folklorist, once called Brewer "the best
story teller of Negro folklore anywhere
in America." The Word on the Brazos and
Dog Ghosts were both published by the
University of Texas Press, while another
collection, Aunt Vier Tales, was privately
printed.
Brewer contended that Afro-American
culture is not African culture, but that
it is unique. Some stories that are a part
of Afro-American culture often date back
to medieval Europe. These stories are
rooted in the folklore of Ireland, England,
and Scotland. It was his opinion that the
American black is so busy trying to sub­stantiate
his African h eritage that he has
forgotten his European heritage.
In later life, Brewer and his wife went
to East Texas State University where he
was extended the honor of lifetime res­idency
as a distinguished visiting profes­sor.
His one desire was to return to his
home in Austin before he died, but death
claimed him in a Dallas hospital on J an­uary
24, 1975.
DR. J . MASON BREWER
Courtesy of Melvin M . Sance, Jr.
DR. ZELMA GEORGE United Nations
DR. ZELMA GEORGE
1961
The talented and versatile Zelma George
has excelled as a musician, sociologist,
humanitarian, and diplomat. Born at
Hearne, Texas, the daughter of the Rev.
and Mrs. S. E. J. Watson, she completed
high school in Topeka, Kansas, received
one degree from the University of Chi­cago,
and two other degrees, a masters
in personnel administration and a doc­torate
in sociology, from New York Uni­versity.
But prior to receiving her doc­torate
in 1954, she had already established
a successful Broadway career as a sing­ing
actress. Her most noted performances
were in the title roles of Gian Carlo
Menotti's two operas, The Medium and
The Consul.
For many years, however, Dr. George's
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29
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30
primary interest has been in the field
of intercultural relations and in black
culture as expressed through its music.
This widow of attorney Clayborne George
is probably best known for her devoted
service to her country. She was a member
of the United States delegation to the Fif­teenth
General Assembly of the United
Nations. She also participated in the Accra
Assembly held in Ghana, West Africa.
Her 1961 receipt of the Dag Hammer­skjold
award for outstanding contribution
to international understanding is one of
her prize possessions.
Her life is perhaps best summed up in
the words of a college professor under
whom she formerly studied: "Dr. George
is an extraordinary woman, a scholar, an
artist, and a human being. She is at once
a message, a challenge, and an inspira­tion.
"
OSCAR N. DU CONGE
1974
Black Texans have a history of public
service dating from reconstruction. Today
this role is well represented by Oscar N.
DuConge who was elected mayor of Waco.
His credentials include a Bachelor of
Arts Degree from Xavier University in
New Orleans, a Master of Social Work
from Atlanta University, and post grad­uate
work at several other institutions.
He has been a teacher, social worker, and
director of the local community action
program. He holds membership in num­erous
religious, civic, and public organ­izations.
With fourteen children, the DuConges
OSCAR N. DU CONGE
entered Texas by way of New Orleans.
Frequently DuConge's French ancestry
comes through in his speech, which is
colored by the New Orleans dialect. His
grandfather assumed the family name of
DuConge after fleei'ng from Haiti first to
Santo Domingo, then to the United States.
Despite the esteem in which his fellow
citizens hold him, he is a modest but blunt
man. Asked why he did not move out of
east Waco which is comparatively poor,
Courtesy of Oscar DuConge
his answer was: "I live there by choice.
I'm not running; I'll probably die in
that house."
What did he think of being mayor?
"I think they (the city council) honored
themselves more than me. We in Waco
are no longer children. We are men and
men act maturely. There's no doubt that
it is an honor to be mayor, but I have no
use for the job. I am not a young man. I
cannot use this fine honor to build a
political future. We simply want to make
Waco a good place to live, work, and
rear a family."
TERESA GRAVES
One of the most attractive, vivacious,
bright, up-beat young women in show
business is Teresa Graves, known to her
TV audience as Christie Love. A devout
Christian, Graves says of her emergence
as the first black female star of an hour
long TV dramatic series: "I'm just doing
a job, and I want to do the best I can."
She has the unusual ability to commit
to memory a whole script after a single
reading.
She emphatically refuses to permit even
stardom to interfere with her religious
teachings and principles. She refused in
the television role as a law officer to be
portrayed taking a human life.
The mischievous, ebullient personality
of Christie Love is in fact the real person­ality
of Teresa Graves. This heroine of
the teenage set, and many adults as well,
was born in Houston. Her family moved
to Los Angeles, California, when she was
five. She maintained a straight "A" av­erage
at Washington High School while
participating in numerous school musi­cals.
At 18, she joined the TV series
"Our Place." Later she became a regular
performer on the enormously popular
"Laugh-In." She has also made three
movies: That Man Bolt, Black Eye, and
has co-starred with David Niven in Vam­pira,
filmed in London. Undoubtedly,
Teresa Graves is one of America's bright­est
young female stars.
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BARBARA JORDAN
1975
We, the people . .. It is a very eloquent
beginning. But when the Constitution of
the United States was completed on the
17th of September in 1787, I was not in­cluded
in that "We, the people." I felt
for many years that somehow George
Washington and Alexander Hamilton just
left me out by mistake. But through the
process of amendment, interpretation and
court decision I have finally been in­cluded
in "We, the people."
"Today I believe hyperbole would not
overstate the solemnness that I feel right
now. My faith in the Constitution is
whole, it is complete, it is total. I am not
going to sit here and be an idle spectator
to the diminution, the subversion, the
destruction of the Constitution."
This eloquent expression of national
loyalty was spoken by Barbara Jordan,
an extraordinary woman, as she and her
colleagues on the House Judiciary Com­mittee
sat in judgement upon a president
of the United States then undergoing the
impeachment process under that very con­stitution
of which she spoke.
Born of humble parents in Houston's
Fifth Ward, this woman refused to be
denied success by the obstacles of poverty,
race, and sex. She finished in the top five
percent of her high school class, then
graduated Magna Cum Laude from Texas
Southern University, and continued on to
complete her education at Boston Law
School.
She achieved success so fast, and ac-
THE HON. BARBARA JORDAN ITC Collection
cumulated so many firsts in the process,
that "first" seems to belong in nearly all
of her titles: the first black to be elected
to the Texas legislature since reconstruc­tion;
the first black woman to have ever
been elected to the Texas Senate; as presi­dent
pro-tern of the Texas Senate, the first
black woman to serve as governor of a
southern state; the first black to be elected
to the U.S. House of Representatives from
Texas.
The unveiling and hanging of a life­sized
portrait of Barbara Jordan in the
Texas Senate on February 8, 1975, was a
unique honor. Here she joined such pres­tigious
Texans as Mirabeau Lamar,
President of the Texas Republic; Jefferson
Davis, President of the Confederacy; and
President Lyndon Baines Johnson.
CONCLUSION
From these selected representative exam­ples,
it is obvious that blacks are no
strangers to Texas. Among the thousands
that have made Texas their home, some
less important, others more important
than those cited here, many individuals
have made contributions in exploration,
colonization, and the growth of Texas to
maturity under Spanish then Anglo con­trol.
In the past twenty years the situation of
the Afro-American Texan has improved,
legally and socially, at a steadily ac­celerating
pace. Today many long-closed
doors of opportunity have opened to posi­tions
of wealth, prominence, and power
in the state and nation. Not all of the
problems have been solved, not all of the
enmities and prejudices have disappeared,
nor are all opportunities yet equal.
Now, as in the days of the Republic­when
the trend was in the reverse­attitudes
of the people as a whole change
slower than the laws. The trend, how­ever,
is clear and unmistakeable. Even
during the tragic years of slavery with
their legacy of racial troubles, Afro­Americans
made outstanding contribu­tions
equal to the circumstances and op­portunities
available. Unlike other ethnic
groups, black Americans were forced to
abandon the heritage of their native land.
Like most groups, they have developed an
indigenous culture in a new home.
One of a series
prepared by the staff of
THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS
INSTITUTE OF TEXAN CULTURES
AT SAN ANTONIO
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