| |
| 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... |
| Bose
Ikard by Clay Coppedge 2-1-11
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 ..."
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 BowmanCastle,
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. 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 6-4-11
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 BowmanFlipper,
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.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 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
The Magnificent
Montague by Bill Cherry
"He’s probably one of the most important
contributors to American black culture that has ever lived. Someone you should
know about..."
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...
Pickett,
Bill
Never
another like Bill Pickett by Clay Coppedge
Bill Pickett invented the practice
of what we know as bulldogging, or steer wrestling....Seminole
Scouts
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
Philosophyby Mike Cox 4-28-11
Through the last decades
of Jim Crow America, he worked as dancing minstrel, a black in blackface clowningThe
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 12-1-10
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... 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
Birthday
Cake with 111 Candles washed down with "Good" whiskey
by Mike Cox 10-7-12
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 5-28-12
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 ArthurThe
Fire in the State Capitol by Mike Cox
10-18-12
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.” |
Old
Emporia by
Bob Bowman 7-2-12
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....
|
| Sweet
Home
6-15-11
Sweet Home Vocational
and Agricultural School
On National Register of Historic Places
Recorded
Texas Historic Landmark |
| Black
History by Dana Goolsby 2-16-11
Black history has
deep roots in the first county in Texas... |
| | Corinth
Baptist Church Cemetery by John Troesser
Black church and cemetery in
Schulenburg, Texas
For a tiny cemetery, a disporportionate number of veterans
graves. |
Babylon
8-6-11Branchville
1869 Old Providence Baptist Church 12-10-10
One of
the oldest Black Historic Churches Buffalo
Soldiers' GraveCologne,
TexasDallas'
"Deep Ellum" Historical District - A Dallas Counterpart to Memphis' Beale
StreetEaston,
Texas 12-13-10Frog,
TexasJarvis
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 CommunityKendleton,
TexasKohrville,
Texas Leigh
- Antioch Community Limestone
County Roadside Park in Memory of Alfonso Steele, Last Survivor of Battle
of San Jacinto, First Settler of Limestone CountyMary
Allen College Photos by George LesterMary
Allen Seminary Historical Marker Nigton
Trinity Co 5-16-12Peyton
Colony, Texas Blanco County 8-17-10
Powell Point SchoolSt.
John ColonySan
Marcos - 1873 Former Hays County Jail - Now the African-American Historical
Museum. Science
Hill by Bob Bowman 6-19-11
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
5-21-13Shiloh
Missionary Baptist Church, Cedar Lane, TexasWeeping
Mary, Texas |
The
changing face of Texas from 1860-1960 by Murray Montgomery12-3-12
What
Texas was like just prior to the Civil WarWilson
Pottery by Clay Coppedge 8-4-12
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.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... 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..." 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.”
Juneteenth
by Archie P. McDonald
"Most East Texans who have lived here more than
at least a month of Sundays know that African Americans claim June 19, or Juneteenth,
as their own special day to celebrate freedom. ... But do you know why June 19
is such a special day?"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 Juneteenth
by Archie P. McDonaldRemembering
Integration by Bob Bowman |
Texas
Black History ForumSubject:
Thergood's
Pine
... I stumble across [your article] "Thergood's Pine" on the internet.
Well I have never been much of a history buff, and since I am African American,
I figured not many records existed of my family history past my grandparents.
Well needless to say, I was terrifically shocked when I read the wonderful article
written by Mr. Bowman and spoke to my father and asked him if we had any family
in the east Texas area. He said that he thought we had family in Point Blank but
the name was originally spelled "Thergood". Well the article written by Mr. Bowman
was about a slave name Collier Thergood from... you guessed it. Point Blank! I
just wanted to personally thank Mr. Bowman for sparking a renewed interest in
obtaining my family history with his article. Thank you again. ... - Eric Thiergood,
May 22, 2001
... I truly appreciate you for running that story and
casting a different light on slavery. So often as an African American, I was told
at ALL slaves where treated horribly and abused, and while grievous abuse did
occurred, I have gained some additional insight by learning about my great, great,
great, great (not quite sure how many greats yet- Im still running down that information)
grandfather.
Just so that you know about what ever happened to that
land after passing through a couple of generations, my great great (again unsure
of how many greats) was pressured to sell by some investors. He stood strong in
refusing to sell the land the family loved so much. That relative was later found
murdered on his porch and "investors" offering to purchase the land the following
day. From what I understand that land was sold for pennies on the dollar and was
later developed into quiet valuable real estate. Again thank you so very much
for the story ... - Eric Thiergood and Family, May 23, 2001 |
Books |
| Black
Churches in Texas: A Guide to Historic Congregations (The Centennial Series of
the Association of Former Students, Texas A&M, No. 85) |
|
| White
Scourge: Mexicans, Blacks, and Poor Whites in Texas Cotton Culture (American Crossroads,
2) |
|
| Invisible
Houston: The Black Experience in Boom and Bust (Texas A & M Southwestern Studies) |
| | |
| Black
Texas Women: 150 Years of Trial and Triumph |
| | | |
