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Jules Bledsoe in 1930s

TEXAS BLACK HISTORY

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  • Featured Articles

  • PEOPLE


  • Buffalo Soldiers by Jeffery Robenalt
    In nearly thirty years of dedicated and arduous service, Buffalo Soldiers won the grudging respect of even the most prejudiced of their white officers. The black cavalrymen and infantrymen were awarded nine Medals of Honor for meritorious valor in combat and countless other awards and commendations for distinguished service. More importantly, Buffalo Soldiers were a credit to the African-American race.

  • Elijah Cox
  • Elijah Cox - Fighting Indians on the Texas Frontier by Murray Montgomery

  • Flipper
  • Henry O. Flipper, The Lost Epic by C. F. Eckhardt
    Henry O. Flipper, 10th US Cavalry - Flipper was by no means the first Black ever appointed to West Point, but he was the first to complete four years and graduate as a commissioned officer in the US Army...

  • Ikard
  • Bose Ikard by Clay Coppedge
    Bose Ikard was born into slavery and became rancher Charley Goodnight’s most trusted and respected cowhand.

  • Barnett, Etta Moten
    Etta Moten Barnett by John Troesser
    November 5th, 1901 - January - 2004
    "Life does not owe me one thing."
    "While her birth in Weimar, Texas may have just been chance, it's her accomplishments after she left Weimar that deserve a closer look. When she died last year of cancer (in Chicago) at the age of 102, Etta Moten Barnett had had a rich and full life.. She is now remembered as an actress, singer, and philanthropist ..."

  • Barrett, Theodore H.
    Colonel Theodore H. Barrett (From Cavalry of the West by Jeffrey Robenalt)

  • Bledsoe, Jules
    Ten Thing you should know about Jules Bledsoe by John Troesser
    Photos courtesy The Texas Collection, Baylor University
    His role as "Joe" in Jerome Kern's Showboat made "Ol' Man River" an American classic.

  • Blind Lemon Jefferson
    Blind Lemon by Bob Bowman

  • Castle, Charlie
    The Bootblack King by Bob Bowman
    It has been thirty years since Charlie Castle died, but they still talk about him in Lufkin. Charlie was a legend, a black man who, according to many East Texans in the fifties, delivered the best shoe shine in Texas.

  • Coleman, Bessie
    Air Pioneer by Bob Bowman
    In 1921 she became the only black pilot in the world. A year later she became the first black woman to fly over American soil.

  • Cox, Elijah
    Elijah Cox - Fighting Indians on the Texas Frontier by Murray Montgomery

  • Cuney, Norris Wright
    Norris Cuney by Archie P. McDonald
    "... Cuney technically began life as a slave..."
    Norris Wright Cuney by Archie P. McDonald
    The most remarkable African American leader in Texas in the nineteenth century.

  • Dightman, Myrtis
    Honoring a bull riding legend by Bob Bowman
    Myrtis Dightman has finally received the attention he should have had decades ago. Born in Crockett in 1935, Dightman was a legendary bull rider who set all types of records for riding raging bulls in rodeo arenas across the United States.

  • Ferguson, Lee
    The 50,000 Shoeshine by Bob Bowman

  • Flipper, Henry O.
    Henry O. Flipper, An Epic Remaining To Be Told by C. F. Eckhardt
    Perhaps the most enigmatic figure in the annals of the American West is not Johnny Ringo of maybe-suicide/maybe-murder or the deliberately enigmatic Mysterious Dave Mather, but 2/LT Henry O. Flipper, 10th United States Cavalry...

  • Goyens, William
    William Goyens by Archie P. McDonald
    This is the story of a free black man who lived and thrived in Nacogdoches during the days of slavery.

  • Hamilton, Jeff
    Sam Houston's trusted friend was born a slave by Murray Montgomery 8-27-13
    The man who was born into slavery and went on to become a trusted friend of Sam Houston died in Belton on April 3, 1941. He is honored by two Texas historical markers...

  • Hardin, Rufus F.
    The Rufus F. Hardin School - Educator Rufus F. Hardin

  • Hopkins, Lightnin'
    A Statue for Lightnin' by Bob Bowman

  • Ikard, Bose
    Bose Ikard by Clay Coppedge
    Bose Ikard was born into slavery and became rancher Charley Goodnight’s most trusted and respected cowhand. For Ikard, more than most, the road to the history books was a long and winding one.

  • Johnson, Jack
    Heavyweight Champ Jack Johnson
    by Archie P. McDonald

  • Leadbelly
    Good Night Irene by Archie P. McDonald

  • Martin Luther King, Jr.
    Martin Luther King, Jr. Birthday by Archie P. McDonald

  • Mary of Perry, Texas
    Mary, Mary, Once of Perry by Toney Urban
    Unbelievable, but true stories connected to Perry, Texas (Falls County)
    "In the late 40s and early 50s, there was a Black lady named Mary (last name unknown), that would arrive out in the countryside near Perry, Texas and dispense some incredibly amazing medicine and conversation....."

  • McCullough, Samuel
    Samuel McCullough Cartoon by Roger T. Moore
    His was likely the first blood shed in the war for independence

  • Miller, Doris
    Doris Miller: Hero by Archie P. McDonald
    African American hero of WWII

  • Montague, Nathaniel
    He Became the Magnificent Montague When He Got Off of the Boat in Galveston by Bill Cherry


  • Old Sock" Shicole Dickenson
    Former slave's death in 1889 attracted rare news coverage by W. T. Block
    In February 1889, Beaumont Enterprise published an obituary about a Black centenarian, nicknamed "Old Sock," in an age when Black obituaries were usually printed only in Negro newspapers...

  • Paige, Leroy "Satchel"
    Magic Moments with Satchel Paige by Michael Barr
    The legendary pitcher Leroy "Satchel" Paige 10-1-23


  • Pickett, Bill
    Never another like Bill Pickett by Clay Coppedge
    Bill Pickett invented the practice of what we know as bulldogging, or steer wrestling....

  • Second Cavalry Division at Fort Clark Historical Marker
    The only all-black cavalry division in U.S. Army history and the largest mounted formation ever to serve in Texas.

  • Seminole Scouts
    Seminole Scout Camp in Fort Clark Historical Marker
    The Whirlwind Lt. John Lapham Bullis and the Seminole Negro Scouts by C. F. Eckhardt
    "One of the least-known heroes of the Texas frontier was a man known to his followers as The Whirlwind and to his enemies as The Thunderbolt..... John Bullis didn't do it all alone. He had a lot of help. The help, mostly, was the Seminole Negro scouts. What became of them?..."

  • Smith, George
    The Rufus F. Hardin School Founder

  • Steele, Alfonso (Alphonso)
    Alfonso (Alphonso) Steele - last Texas survivor of the battle of San Jacinto

  • Robert “Sunshine” Stubblefield
    Carnie Philosophy by Mike Cox
    Through the last decades of Jim Crow America, he worked as dancing minstrel, a black in blackface clowning

  • The Tenth Cavalry
    The Tenth Cavalry Historical Marker in Fort Concho

  • Thergood
    Thergood's Pine by Bob Bowman
    The story of a slave and the oldest pine tree in East Texas.
  • A Hero Named Tom by C. F. Eckhardt
    We don’t know much about Tom’s background, because Tom was a slave. He belonged to William Snyder, a plantation owner in East Texas. We’re told that he was about 35 years old, stood well over 6 feet in height, and weighed about 240 pounds. He was also, apparently, immensely strong...

  • Wells, Willie
    El Diablo gets his due by Clay Coppedge
    Austin native Willie Wells was one of the best shortstops to ever play professional baseball but he was also one of generations of players who performed in relative obscurity because of Major League Baseball's long-standing "gentleman's agreement" that kept Black players out of the big leagues.


  • Wilson, Dooley
    Casablanca’s East Texan by Bob Bowman
    Dooley Wilson played the piano player who sang “As Time Goes By,” in the classic film Casablanca. An African-American, Wilson was born as Arthur Wilson on April 3, 1886, in Tyler.


    MORE

  • Slaves by Mike Cox
    A better way to comprehend slavery is to read some of the official paperwork filed away in the courthouses of Texas counties that existed before the Civil War and the freedom for blacks that followed in 1865.


  • A Different Kind of Alamo Story by Clay Coppedge
    Alamo commander William Barrett Travis' slave, Joe... reported seeing a Black woman "laying dead between two guns" in the battle's aftermath. She was the only woman to die at the Alamo. Until recently, her identity was a mystery.


  • Birthday Cake with 111 Candles washed down with "Good" whiskey by Mike Cox
    Sullivan claimed his mother had been one of George Washington’s slaves. Eventually freed by the first president, Sullivan’s mother married a man named Sullivan and had several children. Though free, her children ended up being pressed back into slavery, literally “sold down the river” from Kentucky to Mississippi.

  • Slave Ada Stone by Murray Montgomery
    109-Year-Old Ex-Slave Recalls Days Long Past

  • Former slave recalls memories of old Lavaca County by Murray Montgomery
    In 1946, a black man by the name of Tate Hicks told a local paper that he was the oldest man in Lavaca County. Fact is, he came to Texas as a slave...

  • Looking for Grandfather in Port Arthur

  • The Fire in the State Capitol by Mike Cox
    When McBride died at 76 on April 8, 1936, the Associated Press, which like the rest of the mainstream media in Jim Crow days did not normally report the natural passing of African-Americans, distributed a four-paragraph story noting the death of “the negro who indirectly caused construction of Texas’ massive granite capitol.”



  • PLACES


    Shiloh
  • Shiloh Gregg Co 2-23-20
  • Allen Chapel  
  • Allen Chapel Houston Co

  • Fodice Houston Co
  • Milford
  • Milford - Saint James A.M.E. Church Ellis Co
    Milford's oldest African-American church and building
  • Fodice
  • Dallas - Fair Park - African American Museum
  • Freedman's
  • Dallas' Freedman's Cemetery
  • Cologne
  • Cologne Goliad Co
  • Vox Populi
  • Vox Populi Colorado Co
  • Cozy Corner
  • Cozy Corner Fayette County

  • Armstrong Colony Fayette County

  • Africa Shelby County
  • Pelham
  • Pelham Navarro County
  • Shankleville
  • Shankleville Newton County
  • Tucker Anderson Co

  • Wichita Falls - Riverside Cemetery
  • Old Emporia by Bob Bowman
    It is on one of the most enduring mysteries in East Texas. In the early 1900s, an explosion and fire struck the old Emporia sawmill south of what is now Diboll. More than thirty sawmill workers, most of them black, are believed to have perished in the conflagration. Burned beyond recognition, the men were reportedly buried in a mass grave somewhere on the Emporia town site, now a part of Diboll, with no tombstones to mark their final resting place....
  • Center Point
    Camp County
  • Sweet Home
  • Sweet Home
    Sweet Home Vocational and Agricultural School
    On National Register of Historic Places
    Recorded Texas Historic Landmark
  • Black History
  • Black History by Dana Goolsby
    Black history has deep roots in the first county in Texas...
  • Olivewood Visit
  • A Visit to Olivewood Cemetery

  • Gravesites of Houston’s Olivewood Cemetery
  • Olivewood graves
    School
  • Concord Rosenwald School By Maryanne Gobble
  • Grable Cemetery
  • Grable Cemetery
    Gregg County. By Maryanne Gobble
  • Shiloh School
  • Shiloh Schoolhouse
    Gregg County. By Maryanne Gobble
  • Garden of Angels
  • The Garden of Angels in Mosier Valley
    A tiny, mostly black community on the north edge of Arlington
  • School
  • The Rufus F. Hardin School
    Founder George Smith, Educator Rufus F. Hardin, and the building. Photos courtesy Jason Grant
  • Corinth
  • Corinth Baptist Church Cemetery by John Troesser
    Black church and cemetery in Schulenburg, Texas
    For a tiny cemetery, a disporportionate number of veterans graves.
  • Arcola, Fort Bend County

  • Alpha, Texas

  • Babylon, Texas, Navarro County

  • Booth, Fort Bend County

  • Branchville 1869 Old Providence Baptist Church
    One of the oldest Black Historic Churches

  • Buffalo Soldiers' Grave

  • Bulah, Cherokee County

  • Cannon, Grayson County

  • Carrollton Black Cemetery, Dallas County

  • Chatfield - Chatfield Baptist Church, Navarro County

  • Cotton Gin Cemetery, Freestone County

  • Dallas' "Deep Ellum" Historical District - A Dallas Counterpart to Memphis' Beale Street

  • Easton, Texas

  • Elm Mott Cemetery, McLennan County

  • Fredonia. Gregg County

  • Frog, Texas

  • Jarvis Christian College by Archie P. McDonald
    Obtaining a collegiate education presented a problem for African Americans in Texas prior to court-ordered racial integration which began in the 1950s... In Texas, especially East Texas, Wiley College in Marshall and Jarvis Christian College in Hawkins were about the only options for undergraduate instruction...

  • Jeddo - St. Phillips Community

  • Kendleton, Texas

  • Kohrville, Texas

  • Lancaster - Rocky Crest School, Dallas County

  • Leigh - Antioch Community

  • Lily White, Texas

  • Limestone County Roadside Park in Memory of Alfonso Steele, Last Survivor of Battle of San Jacinto, First Settler of Limestone County

  • Mary Allen College Photos by George Lester

  • Mary Allen Seminary Historical Marker

  • Nigton, Trinity County

  • Peyton Colony, Blanco County

  • Piney, Titus County

  • Powell Point School

  • Quarry, Washington County

  • Retreat, Texas, Grimes County - Named after a plantation

  • Rocky Mound, Camp County

  • Round Rock Cemetery, Williamson County

  • St. John Colony

  • San Marcos - 1873 Former Hays County Jail - Now the African-American Historical Museum.

  • Sand Flat, Rains County

  • Science Hill by Bob Bowman
    Science Hill lasted only a few decades, but its reputation as a center of education is well-remembered by descendants of its founders and builders. So is its violence in the early days of the Civil War...

  • Shankleville, Newton County

  • Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church, Cedar Lane, Texas

  • Tamina, Montgomery County

  • Tennessee Colony - Jemison Quarters Cemetery

  • Trinity - Trinity Chapel A.M.E. Church

  • Weeping Mary, Texas

  • On the ranch

    On the ranch in the 1930s
    TE Archive



    Texas City TX - old store
    Old store in Texas City
    Click on image to enlarge



    Featured Articles


  • Juneteenth by Archie P. McDonald
    On June 19, 1865, Union General Gordon Granger brought the full force of the United States military establishment to Galveston and proclaimed the Civil War at an end and all wartime proclamations by President Abraham Lincoln in effect in the Lone Star State. Part of that dealt with the end of slavery in Texas...


  • The day slavery ended in Texas by Murray Montgomery 6-22-22

  • Turtle Bayou Resolutions by Archie McDonald, PhD

  • Marshall, Texas, Capital of Missouri by Archie P. McDonald, PhD

  • Glidden Ax Murder - March 1912

  • Relationship Status: It's Complicated or Killer Soup by Mike Cox
    Murdered by wife or slave? Mystery in the 1800s.

  • "Slocum Massacre"

  • The changing face of Texas from 1860-1960 by Murray Montgomery
    What Texas was like just prior to the Civil War

  • Wilson Pottery by Clay Coppedge
    One of the first if not the very first African-American owned businesses in Texas was in Capote, not far from Seguin in Guadalpe County... Examples of Wilson stoneware have been exhibited at the Witte Museum in San Antonio, the Institute of Texas Cultures in San Antonio, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. The Wilson Pottery Foundation, with its own museum, is dedicated to preserving the memory and works of Hiram and the other Wilsons who, in bondage and as free men, created durable and practical stoneware that today is worth more than what any of the Wilson potters made in a lifetime.

  • Long Hot Summers by Archie P. McDonald
    Veterans of the "long hot summers" of the summers of the 1960s, a time of racial tension, would have thought it "de ja vu all over again" if they had remembered 1919...

  • Woman's Christian Temperance Union by Archie P. McDonald
    The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union was misnamed: “temperance” means “moderation...avoiding extremes.” What the WCTU really wanted was total abstinence from all alcohol beverages. They wanted everyone connected with brewing, distilling, fermenting, and selling alcohol out of business and right now...

  • Skull Island on Mermentau River, A Slave Ship's Inhumanity by W. T. Block ("Cannonball's Tales")
    "Back in 1949 my Uncle Austin Sweeney of Nederland, TX who was born and reared in Grand Chenier, LA., told me the story of a slaver captains inhumanity so bestial, that it is difficult for the human mind to comprehend it. It was the story of 200 starving African slaves abandoned on a marsh ridge on Mermentau River, where they were left to die horrific deaths..."

  • New Braunfels, Texas by W.T. Block, Jr.

  • Black Soldiers in the Confederate Army by Murray Montgomery
    "... Not only did they fight, these soldiers distinguished themselves on the battlefield..."

  • Black Cowboys by Murray Montgomery
    The black cowboy has been part of the ranching industry in Texas for a long time. They were born into slavery in the beginning but after the Civil War they continued to work on the ranches as free men...

  • How Boogie Woogie Began by Bob Bowman
    In 1939, African American historian E. Simms Campbell wrote, “Boogie Woogie piano playing originated in the lumber and turpentine camps of Texas and in the sporting houses of that state.”

  • Freeny Hanging by Mike Cox
    James Washington White lost an arm fighting for the South during the Civil War. He could have spent the rest of his life seething with bitterness, but that’s not how it turned out.

  • Scrolling Through History by Bob Bowman
    For black families, who have always had a difficult time researching their earliest ancestors because of poor records dealing with slaves, Murphy’s book has been widely welcomed.

  • KKK from "Texas Tales" column by Mike Cox
    Unsung heroes who were instrumental in putting the end to the Ku Klux Klan in Texas

  • Remembering Integration by Bob Bowman

  • Home Demonstration in Texas by Luke Warm
  • Stealth Weapon of the Confederate Navy by Murray Montgomery
    H.L. Hunley, world's first combat submarine

  • Denison TX Peach Pickers - Gathering and Packing Elberta Peaches
    Gathering and Packing Elberta Peaches, Denison, Texas
    Courtesy www.rootsweb.com/ %7Etxpstcrd/

    Cartoons by Roger T. Moore

  • First Black in Texas
  • Bill Pickett Bulldogging
  • Blessie Coleman
  • Bill Pickett
  • Black Seminole Scouts Save Horseless Commander


    Poems

  • Runaways by David Knape

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