ABSTRACT

The History of African Americans in Fort Worth, Texas

1875-1980

Heather M. Marvel, M.A.

Mentor: James M. SoRelle, Ph.D.

African American urban histories in the United States typically focus on larger

cities in the nation such as Chicago, New York, and Washington, D.C. Despite the low

amount of scholarly works looking at Texas cities, the Lone Star State was not a

welcoming region for freedmen. This paper adds to the African American historical

scholarship by discussing the black Fort Worth urban experience, focusing specifically

from post Reconstruction to 1980. As the southern city grew during the late nineteenth

century and into the twentieth century, African American residents faced similar

prejudices and obstacles as other blacks in larger cities elsewhere in southern and

northern regions. This is their story of overcoming these barriers and becoming an

integrated part of Fort Worth culture.

 The History of African Americans in Fort Worth, Texas
1875-1980

by

Heather M. Marvel, B.A.

A Thesis

Approved by the Department of History

___________________________________
Jeffrey S. Hamilton, Ph.D., Chairperson

Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of

Baylor University in Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
of
Master of Arts

Approved by the Thesis Committee

___________________________________
James M. SoRelle, Ph.D., Chairperson

___________________________________
T. Michael Parrish, Ph.D.

___________________________________
Kenneth C. Hafertepe, Ph.D.

Accepted by the Graduate School

May 2007

___________________________________
J. Larry Lyon, Ph.D., Dean

Page bearing signatures is kept on file in the Graduate School.

Copyright © 2007 by Heather Marvel

All rights reserved

 CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS iv

LIST OF TABLES v

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vi

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS vii

Chapter

1. A Historiography of the African American Urban 1

Experience

2. The City’s Beginnings 14

3. Obstacles and Successes within Fort Worth’s Expanding 32

Industry

4. Politics: From Exploitation to a True Voice 52

5. Social and Cultural Institutions: The Building Blocks of the 64

African American Community

Churches: The Foundation 64

Education: Rising Above the Status Quo 70

Social Organizations: African American Unity and 83

Leadership Within the City

6. Race Relations: From Violence to Resolution 89

City Segregation and the Efforts to Create Unity 101

7. Epilogue – How the Pieces of the Puzzle Fit 107

BIBLIOGRAPHY 113

iii
 ILLUSTRATIONS

Figure Page

1. Location of Captain Ephraim Daggett’s Original House, 1854 16

2. Location of Captain Ephraim Daggett’s Original House, 2007 17

3. Approximate Location of Colonel Nathaniel Terry’s Plantation, 18

2007

4. Location of the African American Business District 26

5. Location of the Fort Worth Stockyards and Armour & Co., 1911 42

iv
 TABLES

Table Page

1. Housing Conditions for Fort Worth by Total and Non-White, 1950 29

2. Housing Conditions for Fort Worth by Total and Black, 1970 29

3. Top Jobs for Male and Female Colored Workers in Fort Worth, 36
1890

4. Short Listing of African American Businesses and Entrepreneurs, 37

1890

5. Fort Worth Black Employment Distribution out of 28,880 Black 49

Employees, 1970

6. Income for African Americans and Latinos in Fort Worth, Texas, 50

and U.S., 1969

7. Historic African American Churches by Denomination in Dallas and 69

Tarrant Counties

8. 1990 and 2000 Tarrant County Census Information 108

9. 2000 Fort Worth City Census Information 109

v
 ABBREVIATIONS

ACT Allied Communities of Tarrant [County]

IAF Industrial Areas Foundation

NACW National Association of Colored Women

NUL National Urban League

TCIC Texas Commission of Interracial Cooperation

YWCA Young Women’s Christian Association

vi
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank Dr. James SoRelle for his guidance and advisement during

the entire thesis process. I also would like to thank my family and friends for their

support and encouragement throughout my graduate studies.

vii
 CHAPTER ONE

A Historiography of the African American Urban Experience

The study of the African American experience in urban settings is not a new

trend. Historians have studied and written about the African American experience in the

United States since the nineteenth century. The focus, however, stayed mainly within the

realm of general overarching themes. Sociologists rather than historians first touched

upon the topic of African Americans in urban settings. W. E. B. Du Bois’s The

Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study (1899) was the first scholarly work about African

American urban culture. While Du Bois described various aspects of the black

community in Philadelphia including patterns of population growth, education, and race

relations, his method was based in the social science of sociology. Du Bois’s reason for

the work fell in line with other social reformers of his time. He saw a problem of racial

tension within Philadelphia and believed that by describing the situation, the public

would be aware of the problem and would work to resolve the issue. This tension, Du

Bois believed, related directly to the mass emigration of southern blacks into northern

cities. Du Bois’s regionally focused sociological study became the forerunner of similar

studies with the same exodus focus during the next sixty years.1

Few published works before World War I focused on black urban studies. The

prime example of pre and postwar African American urban cultural scholarship is The

Negro in Chicago: A Study of Race Relations and a Race Riot (1922) by Charles S.

Johnson. Johnson’s study gave great insight into the black urban experience and offered
1
W. E. B. Du Bois, The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study (Philadelphia, 1899).
 2

factors relating to racial violence; however, the work failed to include a vital aspect.

While he used history as background information to explain why African Americans

moved to northern cities, Johnson did not involve history to discuss how the specific

topics of slavery and segregation affected contemporary events and race relations.

Further studies by sociologists contained the same omission.2

Robert E. Park elaborated on Du Bois’s race relations theory in 1913. Park’s

theory created the idea that the dynamics of race relations evolved through four

consecutive phases: contact, competition, accommodation, and assimilation. Continuing

with the sociological trends of the time, Park focused his research on large northern urban

centers rather than on his original study of the American South. According to Park, the

Great Migration of African American southerners moving to northern cities around

World War I placed black Americans in the same condition as European immigrants

moving to large urban areas. The cyclical race relations theory remained constant,

continued to grow, and would never cease; thus, Park’s argument concluded that African

Americans were not a unique minority in the city.3 Continuing with this argument, E.

Franklin Frazier published The Negro Family in Chicago (1932) and described how black

families in Chicago arranged themselves according to economic class systems, thereby

challenging the general belief of a ghettoized culture. Sociologists and historians

disputed the concept of a ghetto later in the publications on urban history.4

2
Charles S. Johnson, The Negro in Chicago: A Study of Race Relations and a Race Riot (Chicago:
Commission on Race Relations, 1922).
3
Robert E. Park, Race & Culture (Glencoe, IL: Free Press, 1950).
4
E. Franklin Frazier, The Negro Family in Chicago (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1932).
 3

In 1945, a combination of sociology and anthropology merged to create a step

toward the study of urban history when St. Clair Drake and Horace R. Cayton published

Black Metropolis: A Study of Negro Life in a Northern City, in association with social

anthropologist W. Lloyd Warner. For the first time, a study of the African American

urban experience included an in-depth discussion and analysis of black American life in

the city. Even though all three men previously worked on Deep South studies, the

combined effort focused on the city of Chicago because it remained difficult to compile

complete information in the South. It was during this venture that Drake and Cayton

adopted the term “ghetto” to describe the segregated section of the city termed

“Bronzeville” by its residents.5 Around the same time, Robert Weaver posed the idea

that the word “ghetto” was a recent term developed during the Great Migration, in his

book, The Negro Ghetto (1948), a theory disputed by the first true urban historians.6

In the 1950s, urban scholarship came to a halt as historians focused their attention

on the history of slavery, emancipation, and Jim Crow in the light of civil rights activities

around the nation. If any historian studied urban history in the South, they looked at

southern antebellum cities, not contemporary centers. The previous studies done by

sociologists between 1900 and 1950, however, proved useful because they gave insight

on black communities and introduced various theories and approaches for future

historians. The preceding faults of sociologists overlooking how history shaped current

or future events and excluding southern, western, and smaller northern cities ended with

the first urban historians during the 1960s.

5
St. Clair Drake and Horace R. Cayton, Black Metropolis: A Study of Negro Life in a Northern
City (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1945).
6
Robert Weaver, The Negro Ghetto (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1948).
 4

The years between 1963 and 1980 saw the advent of complete historical studies of

northern urban centers. These official urban historians based their work on previous

sociological studies but imposed historical dominance over the topic and a focus on the

pre-Depression years. During these years, two main ideas surfaced regarding the African

American urban experience. Scholars determined that the term “ghetto,” while

previously associated with the Great Migration, actually developed during the late

nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Historians also pinpointed how African

Americans were not just another immigrant group within urban areas. Instead, black

communities in cities were a significant minority due to intense white prejudice and

hostility.7

From the 1980s through the early 1990s, urban history focus shifted as scholars

sought to break away from the ghetto emphasis and focus on social groups and survival

techniques within the black communities during the 1930s and 1940s. Late twentieth

century historians did not want to lump African American urban history into a group

summed up by the term “ghetto.” African Americans’ experiences before their move into

urban landscapes were vital components to their development within cities as well as the

occupations they undertook and other social systems within their communities. These

more recent studies also included massive research within the American South, West, and

other northern cities. Studies became available on Detroit, Cleveland, San Francisco,

Seattle, Washington, D.C., and Louisville. Examples of published works during this

expanse of new urban research are James Borchert’s Alley Life in Washington: Family,

7
Examples of such studies include Gilbert Osofsky, Harlem: The Making of a Ghetto, 1890-1930
(New York: Harper and Row, 1963); Allan Spear, Black Chicago: The Making of a Negro Ghetto, 1890-
1920 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967); David Katzman, Before the Ghetto: Black Detroit in
the Nineteenth Century (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1973); and Thomas Philpott, The Slum and
the Ghetto (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978).
 5

Community, Religion, and Folklife in the City, 1850-1970 (1980); Earl Lewis, In Their

Own Interests: Race, Class, and Power in Twentieth-Century Norfolk, Virginia (1991);

and Darlene Clark Hine, “Black Migration to the Urban Midwest: The Gender

Dimension, 1915-1945” (1991).8

These new works began to focus on a wider range of topics, all of which played

an important role in the black American experience in urban history. For example, a

major development in historical research suggested that rather than hostile southern

culture pushing African Americans out of the south and into the pull of northern city

opportunities, migrations to the North resulted from already established close social

relationships with friends and family living in the North. Other topics such as education,

gender roles, family life, businesses, politics, culture, and racial violence expanded

African American urban history research.9

Racial violence topics covered issues such as slavery, prejudice, segregation,

unfair treatment within the Jim Crow laws of southern states, and violence conducted by

the Ku Klux Klan and enraged mobs. Historians countered the country’s most horrible

past events with glimmers of hope for a united future when they included school

8
James Borchert, Alley Life in Washington: Family, Community, Religion, and Folklife in the City,
1850-1970 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1980); Earl Lewis, In Their Own Interests: Race, Class,
and Power in Twentieth-Century Norfolk, Virginia (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991);
Darlene Clark Hine, “Black Migration to the Urban Midwest: The Gender Dimensions, 1915-1945,” in
Trotter, ed., The Great Migration in Historical Perspective: New Dimensions in Race, Class, and Gender
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991); Richard Walter Thomas, Life for Us Is What We Make It:
Building Black Community in Detroit, 1915-1945 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992); Kenneth
Kusmer, A Ghetto Takes Shape: Black Cleveland, 1870-1930 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1976);
Douglas H. Daniels, Pioneer Urbanites: A Social and Cultural History of Black San Francisco
(Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1980); Quintard Taylor, The Forging of a Black Community:
Seattle’s Central District from 1870 Through the Civil Rights Era (Seattle: University of Washington Press,
1994); and George Wright, Life Behind a Veil: Blacks in Louisville, Kentucky, 1865-1930 (Baton Rouge:
Louisiana State University Press, 1985).
9
For more information regarding the historiography of the African American urban experience,
refer to Joe W. Trotter’s “African Americans in the City: The Industrial Era, 1900-1950,” Journal of Urban
History, 21:4 (May 1995), 438-57.
 6

integration, civil rights, and the current status of racial tolerance within the nation. As the

study of history moved into the 1990s, scholarship regarding African American urban

history shifted direction. Continuing to the present, urban history research no longer

focuses solely on the negative aspects of African American history. Earlier academic

studies depicted blacks as victims and powerless and only focused on the African

American elite. The new African American urban history stresses empowerment, an

active involvement in their positions within the community, and a closer look at their

lives in general, not just the major figures. Additionally, scholarship tends to place a

greater emphasis on African Americans in the South more so than the northeastern,

midwestern, and western states.10

Since this is the case, where does Texas fit into the geographical pattern of

academic research? Scholars debate the factors that dictate whether Texas is a western or

a southern state. Fort Worth, located in northeast Texas, is a prime example in this

argument. The city’s economy was, and still is, largely based on stockyards and the meat

packing industry, which is commonly associated with the West. The social and racial

climate, however, is very similar to those in southern cities. This is not to say that

African Americans did not live in the western half of the United States. The African

American experience in the West has been studied, as noted above, and remains a part of

black history. The sheer number of African Americans in Texas compared to other

western states, however, adds to the debate of whether Texas is a western state or a

southern state. The top four cities in Texas—San Antonio, Houston, Dallas, and Fort

Worth—during the mid-nineteenth century were not as large as other western urban

10
Kenneth W. Goings and Raymond A. Mohl, “Toward a New African American Urban History,”
Journal of Urban History, 21 (March 1995), 283-295; and Howard N. Rabinowitz, Race Relations in the
Urban South, 1865-1890 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978).
 7

centers, but the state’s cities combined African American population outnumbered the

total black population in the West’s five largest cities.11 This dichotomy between western

economic and southern cultural influences makes the study of African American history

in Texas a unique enterprise.

There are many academic works devoted to Texas African American experiences,

especially studies that take a microcosmic look at Texas blacks. In 1937, Harold Robert

Schoen wrote about free blacks in the Republic of Texas.12 Almost seventy years later,

two contemporary historians focused on black Texas history’s gruesome events. William

Carrigan’s book, The Making of a Lynching Culture: Violence and Vigilantism in Central

Texas, 1836-1916 focuses specifically on Central Texas’s violent past and the multiple

lynchings that took place in that portion of the state.13 Patricia Bernstein concentrated

her research solely on one event, the 1916 lynching of Jesse Washington, a young black

teenager in Waco.14 Other authors, such as Alwyn Barr, chose to focus on the black

Texan experience in general.15 Barr covered all aspects of the African American

experience, from the conquistadors to political disfranchisement. While these works

represent only a selection from the available texts concerning African Americans in

Texas, it is obvious that many topics remain unexplored. Despite these few examples of

11
Quintard Taylor, In Search of the Racial Frontier: African Americans in the American West,
1528-1990 (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1998), 208.
12
Harold Robert Schoen, “The Free Negro in the Republic of Texas,” Southwestern Historical
Quarterly, 40 (July 1936), 26-34.
13
William Carrigan, The Making of a Lynching Culture: Violence and Vigilantism in Central
Texas, 1836-1916 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2004).
14
Patricia Bernstein, The First Waco Horror: The Lynching of Jesse Washington and the Rise of
the NAACP (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2005).
15
Alwyn Barr, Black Texans: A History of African Americans in Texas, 1528-1995, 2d ed.
(Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1996).
 8

scholarly works depicting the life of black Texans, there are still aspects missing,

particularly regarding Fort Worth’s black history.

Fort Worth, Texas, a large city that is now part of the “metroplex” known as

Dallas-Fort Worth, struggled with segregation and Jim Crow laws and experienced fights

for civil rights along with the rest of the United States. There are not many academic

studies of the city’s African American or civil rights history, but this does not mean that

Fort Worth’s black history is insignificant; nor does it imply that all the events were quiet

and easily reconciled.16 Mainly articles and graduate theses comprise the academic work

regarding African American history in Fort Worth. In 1973, Laurene Sharp self-

published a work entitled 100 Years of the Black Man in Fort Worth. While this was the

first book focused on African Americans in Fort Worth, Sharp’s study is incomplete and

lacks a bibliography, thereby making it difficult to check sources for accuracy.17

In 1988 and 1990, two graduate students focused their research projects on

specific aspects within the city’s African American past. Barry Sandlin’s master’s thesis

at the University of Texas at Arlington, entitled “The 1921 Butcher Workmen Strike in

Fort Worth, Texas,” looked at a strike-breaking event that resulted in a lynching and

nation-wide attention.18 Two years later, Marjorie Clark’s doctoral dissertation at the

University of North Texas focused on residential racial segregation throughout the city

16
Good introductory sources regarding civil rights activities are John Dittmer, ed., Essays on the
American Civil Rights Movement (College Station: Published for the University of Texas at Arlington by
Texas A & M Press, 1993); and “African-American History Resources at the Center: A Selected
Bibliography,” www.cah.utexas.edu/guides/AfricanAmerican4.html, Date Accessed: 18 April 2005.
17
Laurene Sharp, 100 Years of the Black Man in Fort Worth (Fort Worth: L. Sharp & Co., 1973).
18
Barry Trent Sandlin, “The 1921 Butcher Workmen Strike in Fort Worth, TX” (M.A. thesis,
University of Texas at Arlington, 1988).
 9

over a thirty-year time span.19 Scott Cummings published another academic publication

that looked at residential segregation and the subsequent effects of desegregation of the

Fort Worth suburb of Rosedale. Cummings’s work, Left Behind in Rosedale: Race

Relations and the Collapse of Community Institutions, appeared in 1998 and focused on

the breakdown of an incorporated white suburban neighborhood after African Americans

began settling there in the late 1960s.20 The exception to all of the previous publications

is the book Princes Shall Come Out of Egypt, Texas, and Fort Worth, by Reby Cary.

Cary’s book, to date, stands as the most definitive work regarding the entire Fort Worth

African American experience. Cary begins with the very first time an African stepped

foot on Texas soil during the sixteenth century as a European’s slave and continues to

chart the course of the African American past in Texas, focusing mainly on Fort Worth.21

It must also be noted that Cary not only wrote the most definitive book about Fort Worth

African Americans to date, he was an active participant in the city’s civil rights history.

Cary’s activities are discussed further in this thesis.

No single work, however, considers all aspects of black community development

within the city, and where the city currently stands concerning African Americans’ place.

This thesis seeks to delve further and broader into the city’s black history throughout a

hundred year time span to describe Fort Worth’s African American community. By

keeping the historical focus on the century between 1875—when Reconstruction ended—

until 1980, the reader will gain a fuller knowledge and understanding of the transition

19
Marjorie Clark, “Racial Residential Segregation: Tracking Three Decades in a Single City”
(Ph.D. diss., University of North Texas, 1990).
20
Scott Cummings, Left Behind in Rosedale: Race Relations and the Collapse of Community
Institutions (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1998).
21
Reby Cary, Princes Shall Come out of Egypt, Texas, and Fort Worth (Pittsburgh, PA: Dorrance
Publishing Co., Inc., 2002).
 10

from freedman to city resident and the opportunities and obstacles African Americans

faced. Fort Worth’s black heritage is rich, and this study tells not only of the African

American experience but also of the white community’s attitudes as one race interacted

with the other. To reveal the stories, this work is divided into seven chapters, each of

which covers a main theme. The first chapter is a quick overview of African American

urban history. The second chapter is a brief sketch of Fort Worth’s history and where

African Americans fit within the city’s demographics and residential patterns. From

there, Chapter Two will break down the African American experience within specific

topics. The first topic discussed is residential segregation, especially relating to the city’s

racial boundaries and the events that occurred after the desegregation of all-white

neighborhoods.

The third chapter focuses on the city’s economy and the various occupations open

and closed to African Americans through time. Black business leaders rose within the

community and helped encourage entrepreneurs to open stores that eventually serviced

both white and black clientele. In the fourth chapter, Fort Worth’s black community

tackles the huge obstacle of the right to vote and their place as political leaders. At first,

white politicians used the African American vote to elect favored leaders for the white

community, not the black interest. African Americans wanted their voices and opinions

heard and to have political influence. To achieve this goal, the city’s black community

created organizations and rallied for political power.

Political organizations were not the only communal groups that brought African

American residents together. Chapter Five describes how and where black residents

started their own churches, schools, and fraternal organizations within the city. These
 11

associations not only connected the black community but also created a support system

within the city for African American residents. The sixth chapter combines all the

previous themes together to discuss a major subject within the Texas city. As previously

discussed, Texas is a state with connections to a western economy and industry but with

southern racial attitudes. These issues arose often in the growing city’s history. The

chapter looks at Fort Worth’s race relations, especially relating to racial violence, school

desegregation, responses to segregation within the city, and civil rights activity. The

intended outcome for these layers of topics is to create a fuller picture of Fort Worth’s

history through the black experience.

A case study similar in nature to this thesis is Thomas Hanchett’s Sorting Out the

New South City: Race, Class, and Urban Development in Charlotte, 1875-1975.22 As

Hanchett looked at the development of Charlotte, North Carolina, he described a city that

grew rapidly during the post-Civil War years as black and white citizens interacted with

one another. Fort Worth is also a city that developed after the war, but while Charlotte

was a mixed city initially, Fort Worth started as a principally white village with a few

slaves owned by wealthier residents. After the war and Reconstruction, Fort Worth’s

residents struggled as they slowly accepted the newly freed blacks in the community.

While the city grew and evolved, white citizens found themselves in a new situation

wherein they needed to accept African Americans in the city or face a large social rift that

would divide the community. At the same time, Fort Worth blacks faced a similar

situation because they had to decide to fight for equal citizenship or fall to the social

22
Thomas Hanchett, Sorting Out the New South: Race, Class, and Urban Development in
Charlotte, 1875-1975 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998).
 12

fringes. While Texas blacks adapted to their new place within society, the city of Fort

Worth adapted to them.

The “New South,” as a term given to southern states after the end of the Civil War

and Reconstruction, depicted a change in the states’ economic and social makeup.

Ideally, this intangible idea promoted an idea of change for the better, but the war left the

southern states’ economic and social structures in shambles. On average, southern states

dependent on agricultural revenue saw a decrease in productivity and profits mainly due

to lack of slave labor and a sporadic rise in use of machinery. By 1890, the majority of

the nations’ industrialization remained in the northern and midwestern states. Texas,

although the largest in land mass, was the seventh most populated state in the country

with 2,235,523 residents in 1890. Economically, however, Texas ranked eighteenth

among the most industrialized states.23

Socially, southern whites during Reconstruction faced a world in which blacks

were supposed to be their equals. By some accounts, the transition was easier for some

cities than for others. Hanchett discovered that Charlotte’s mixed population adapted

quickly to emancipation primarily because, historically, blacks and whites lived near each

other in the community. Compared to Charlotte, did Fort Worth African Americans

adapt and thrive well in a city developed mainly in the New South? How did the new

city’s white population deal with the issues that arose with the emergence of newly freed

African Americans? Looking statistically at Tarrant County’s first ten years, there was

not a large slave population. Therefore, it seems as if the community would be more

willing to accept blacks. Did African Americans have a better chance for economic,

23
Historical Census Browser, retrieved from the University of Virginia, Geospatial and Statistical
Data Center, http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/collections/stats/histcensus/index.html, Date Accessed: 9 May
2006.
 13

social, and educational opportunities than what they experienced in cities like Atlanta or

other southern cities that were well-established before the Civil War? Does the

timeframe of a southern city’s development directly correspond to the treatment of

African Americans later in the city’s history and to the prevailing racial attitudes? Does

the geography of an American city even matter to determine the type of urban experience

African Americans encountered during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries? The

answer, especially regarding Fort Worth, is no. Fort Worth was still a city in a southern

slave state. The white citizens of the city were angered by the results of the war and

especially about Reconstruction, which hurt the economy and population. After the war,

Texas took five years to accept the federal terms of absolution to return to the Union.

The war was largely due to the slavery debate. If the state’s reaction to the war and the

federal government’s actions during Reconstruction are any indication of white feelings

toward emancipation, it becomes easier to see how Fort Worth slipped quickly into

segregation and racial intolerance.24

24
For more information about Texas during the Civil War and Reconstruction refer to W. A.
Fletcher’s Rebel Private, Front and Rear: Memoirs of a Confederate Soldier (New York: Dutton, 1908);
Charles W. Ramsdell, Reconstruction in Texas (New York: Columbia University, 1910); Joel H. Silbey,
Storm over Texas: The Annexation Controversy and the Road to Civil War (New York: Oxford University
Press, 2005); Randolph B. Campbell, Gone to Texas: A History of the Lone Star State (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2003); Alwyn Barr, Reconstruction to Reform: Texas Politics, 1876-1906 (Austin:
University of Texas Press, 1971); Randolph B. Campbell, Grass-Roots Reconstruction in Texas, 1865-1880
(Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1997); and William Curtis Nunn, Texas Under the
Carpetbaggers (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1962).
 CHAPTER TWO

The City’s Beginnings

The city of Fort Worth, Texas, originated in 1849 as a frontier outpost on the

named after General William Jenkins Worth, a hero of the Mexican War. The military

post served to act as a way station for Fort Graham sixty miles to the south and protect

the newly annexed state of Texas.1 Migrants moved west into Indian-inhabited land, but

the fort never fulfilled its intended use. Frontier boundaries continued to extend west,

and federal soldiers left to occupy newer forts constructed along the ever-expanding

boundary. As the fort became dilapidated and rarely used, settlers moved into the area

and took over the site in 1853, renaming the area Fort Town.2 Three years later, the

budding city became the county seat for Tarrant County. Fort Worth did not claim

sprawling plantations or families with large slave holdings, but the earliest settlers

brought their slaves with them.3

When the United States Congress resolved to annex the Texas Republic in 1845,

the congressmen agreed that the new state would stay a slave state since the Republic of

Texas’ congress allowed uninhibited slavery. By 1850, there were 58,161 slaves in

Texas, congregated in the eastern part of the state. Tarrant County did not hold many

1
Richard F. Selcer, “Setting the Record Straight: Fort Worth and the Historians,” Southwestern
Historical Quarterly, 100 (January 1997), 361-379.
2
Richard F. Selcer, The Fort That Became a City: An Illustrated Reconstruction of Fort Worth,
Texas, 1849-1853 (Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press, 1995), 137.
3
Julian Garrett, Fort Worth: A Frontier Triumph (Austin, TX: Encino Press, 1972; reprint, Fort
Worth: Texas Christian University, 1996), 127.

14
 15

slaves, only 65, a mere 0.1 percent of the total slave population in Texas.4 Despite the

low numbers, the fact remained that white settlers in Tarrant County held slaves, whose

number increased drastically within a decade. Yet in 1850, Tarrant County’s resident

population consisted of only 664 people, 9.8 percent of whom were slaves.5

Two of Fort Town’s earliest and most renowned residents moved to the area in

1854, bringing their families, animals, material goods, and slaves. Captain Ephraim

Daggett built his house where Main, Houston, 10th and 11th Street converge today in Fort

Worth. (Fig. 1 and 2) He brought many slaves with him, but the number is not specified.

Julian Garrett, author of Fort Worth: A Frontier Triumph, describes Daggett’s entrance

into the small town: “When Daggett’s caravan arrived in Fort Town it was an entire day

of excitement, because it came in relays. First came the carriage with Mrs. Daggett, and

then a two-seated buggy driven by Captain Daggett close behind. There were several

wagons with slaves, household goods and tools. In late afternoon, a few slaves appeared

driving a herd of dairy cows. Following them were young Negro boys with flocks of

turkeys, geese and ducks. Later came slaves driving a few horses and mules.”6 Garrett’s

description suggests at least fifteen slaves came with the Daggetts. Colonel Nathaniel

Terry brought thirty-eight slaves when he and his family settled in Fort Town near the

North Fort Worth railway tracks and Exchange Avenue East. (Fig. 3) Garrett describes

Terry’s arrival as two wagons carrying thirty-six slaves followed by “carriages with two

pretty girls [presumably white] and their mammies.”

4
It must be noted that there were free blacks in the Republic of Texas. Refer to Harold Schoen,
“The Free Negro in the Republic of Texas,” Southwestern Historical Quarterly 40 (July 1936): 26-34.
5
Historical Census Browser, retrieved from the University of Virginia, Geospatial and Statistical
Data Center, http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/collections/stats/histcensus/index.html, Date Accessed: 9 May
2006.
6
Garrett, 127-130.
Fig. 1. The black circle indicates the approximate location of Captain Ephraim Daggett’s original house in Tarrant County in 1854. The map
shown here is from 1885, where the area became Elliott and Roe Lumber Yard. Neighboring blocks contain businesses, factories, and African
American housing. The lower right block labeled “115,” between S. Rusk and E. 12th Street, has the words “Negro Shanties” along the bottom
edge. Reprinted from Digital Sanborn Maps 1867-1970, Fort Worth, Texas 1885, sheet 8.
16
Fig. 2. This map portrays the same area of Fort Worth where Captain Ephraim Daggett first settled in relation to the current city layout. Reprinted
from Google Maps.com, http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Fort+Worth,+TX, Date Accessed: 3 December 2006.
17
 18

Fig. 3. The black rectangle represents the approximate location where Colonel Nathaniel
Terry and his family settled in Fort Town in 1854 in relation to the current city of Fort
Worth. Reprinted from Google Maps.com.

According to historian Reby Cary, Colonel Middleton Tate Johnson brought the

most slaves, although the exact number is unknown.8 Two other slave owners in the area

were Paul Isbell and Charles Turner. The number of slaves they owned respectively is

not recorded.9 Despite this lack of information, it is clear that slavery was a thriving

institution, even in a blooming city. By 1860, the number of slaves in Tarrant County

rose to 850 from the previous count of 65 in 1850. Two main factors contributed to this

1207.7 percent swell in slaves. The first explanation is simply natural reproduction,

8
Cary found reference to Terry’s slaves in James Farber’s Fort Worth in the Civil War. Reby
Cary, Princes Shall Come Out of Egypt, Texas, and Fort Worth (Pittsburgh, PA: Dorrance Publishing Co.,
Inc., 2002), 150.
9
Leonard Sanders, How Fort Worth Became the Texasmost City (Fort Worth, TX: Amon Carter
Museum of Western Art, 1973), 14.
 19

while the second factor was the settlement of Fort Town. As settlers moved into the area,

they brought slaves from other parts of Texas or other Southern states. The increase in

farming also raised the demand to buy more slaves from markets in New Orleans,

Galveston, and Houston to provide labor to farm the land. The entire state saw a

dramatic rise in slave numbers. Between the 1850 and 1860 censuses, Texas experienced

an increase of 124,405 slaves—a rise of 213.9 percent—with 21,878 total slaveholders.

Texas’s large slaveholding population and the state’s agricultural dependence upon slave

labor set the scene for future racial tension and economic troubles in the years following

the Civil War.10

The Civil War wreaked havoc on southern cities, including Fort Worth. The

city’s economy sagged while resources such as food and money diminished. The stress

caused by the war and Reconstruction caused citizens to leave to seek opportunities

elsewhere. From 1860 to 1870, Tarrant County’s population decreased from 6,020

residents to 5,788, while at one point Fort Worth’s population dramatically dropped to

175 residents.11 The leading powers also changed after the war. Between 1867 and

1869, a Union-appointed government controlled Texas affairs while the state underwent

mandatory Reconstruction. During Reconstruction, Fort Worth citizens became angered

about the federal presence in the state, dictating the rebuilding of Texas’ economy, and

they directed their anger at white northerners, Republicans, and former slaves. Texas,

along with the other former Confederate states, had to ratify new state constitutions in

order to regain admittance to the Union. On 30 March 1870, five years after the war

10
Historical Census Browser.
11
Janet Schmelzer, “Fort Worth, Texas,” http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/
FF/hdf1.html, Date Accessed: 5 December 2006.
 20

ended, Texas once again became a part of the United States. Fort Worth became an

official city in 1873 and elected Dr. A. L. Burts as its first mayor.12

Even before the Civil War ended, slave owners knew the day was approaching

when freeing their slaves would no longer be a personal decision. Although President

Abraham Lincoln announced the Emancipation Proclamation on 1 January 1863, many

southern blacks did not realize they were free unless their owner told them or they heard

the news from other sources. Sam Jones Washington, an ex-slave who later moved to

Fort Worth, remained with his master, Sam Young, after the Civil War because he did not

know he was free. In an interview during the 1930s, Washington recalled how he

remained ignorant about his freedom for a few years. “One day Massa say to me, ‘After

this, you gits fifteen dollars the month wages.’”13 Without realizing he could choose

whether to stay or leave, Washington remained with his former master and worked for

him for another three years. Young, similar to other former slaveholders, thought that

offering a paid wage would encourage their former slaves to continue working.

Washington portrayed both possibilities that freedmen chose. He stayed and worked for

his master, earning monthly wages. After only a few years, however, Washington knew

with certainty that he wanted to explore the world outside his old master’s farm.

Some slave traders, such as a man known only as Carroll, brought their slave

property from other southern states and left them in Texas to fend for themselves.

Historian Zeke Handler interviewed Jamie Wilson, a slave owned by Carroll, in the

1930s. Wilson related the story of how Carroll left Wilson, Wilson’s mother, and one

12
Ibid.
13
Sam Jones Washington, in Andrew Waters, ed., I Was Born in Slavery (Winston-Salem, NC:
John F. Blair, 2003), 55.
 21

hundred other slaves in an area between Fort Worth and Springtown right before the Civil

War. The family wandered around the region, uncertain of where to go or what to do.

They did not know the area and were unsure of their future. The majority of whites after

the war despised blacks and no longer wanted them around. After walking aimlessly,

looking for food, Wilson and his mother passed a white family’s house. The family

decided to take them in and give them food in exchange for a year’s work.14

The majority of African Americans in Texas did not have the rude awakening that

Wilson and his family experienced. In fact, slaves in Texas did not know they were free

until 19 June 1865 when Union general Gordon Granger announced the news as soon as

he arrived in Galveston. Slaves across Texas had mixed emotions of joy and sadness

when they heard about their freedom. Millie Williams, a former slave, recalled how her

friends and family reacted. “There sho’ was a mighty party when the slaves knows they’s

free. They hug one ’nother and almost tear their clothes off. Some cryin’ for the

husband, and some cryin’ for the chillen.”15

After the news spread that they were free, many former slaves left Texas and

headed north, including some from Fort Worth. A few slaves, such as those previously

owned by Colonel Johnson, stayed on the plantations. Johnson even gave a plot of land

to his former slaves to live on after their freedom. This land later became the African

American suburb of Johnson Station, just outside of Fort Worth. Betty Farrow had a

similar experience after the Civil War when a fight over land killed her master, Alex

Clark. Farrow stayed with Clark’s wife and never thought about leaving. “When the war

14
Mack Williams, ed., “Memories of Tarrant County Slaves,” In Old Fort Worth: The Story of a
City and its People as Published in the News-Tribune in 1976 and 1977 (Fort Worth, TX: Mack H.
Williams and Madeline C. Williams, 1977), 13.
15
Millie Williams, in Waters, 79-83.
 22

was over . . . we’uns stayed on workin’. I’s don’t ’member bein’ told I’s free. They

might have told my mammy. I’s don’t see no diff’ence, we’uns just stayed. ’Twas our

home, and they was good to us, ’twarnt any reason to leave.”16

After 1865, many black Texans remained with their previous masters, as did

other freedmen in neighboring slave states. Freedom for them seemed almost like an

intangible dream after generations of servitude and oppression. How could they be free

and leave if all former southern slaves knew was overseers, slave catchers, and shelter

and food provided for them? If they left, blacks did not know if other people would

catch and return them to their owners. Mostly due to timidity and the unknown, Texas

African Americans did not readily jump at the thought of equality in the 1860s and

1870s. It was such a new concept after centuries of enslavement that the idea of absolute

freedom was a difficult idea to grasp, especially with negative white racial attitudes all

around them. Many black Texans stayed with the people, places, and activities they

knew, allowing themselves to be immersed in their new freedom slowly. The choice to

remain in agricultural work kept many Fort Worth blacks in the country surrounding the

town, prolonging the inevitable change in the community’s racial composition for a few

more years.17

As African Americans began moving into Fort Worth in the late nineteenth

century, white residents accepted them, provided they remained in segregated

neighborhoods. For some Texas towns, this form of acceptance was relatively

progressive. In some areas such as Comanche County, whites actually forced black

16
Betty Farrow, in ibid., 126-27.
17
This information gathered from discussions in slave narratives and in W. E. B. Du Bois’s The
Souls of Black Folk (New York: Library of America, 1986).
 23

residents to leave the area. In late July 1886, whites ordered blacks to leave, under

penalty of death, from Comanche County and the towns of De Leon, Bibbs, Snipe

Springs, and Fleming, after allegations of multiple offenses by blacks against white

women and little girls in surrounding counties.18 Whites hung signs in the towns that

said, “No negroes allowed in this town.” As a result of this forced migration, twenty-

three African Americans came to Fort Worth via the Texas and Pacific Railroad to seek

refuge.19 Those who came were willing to work and found jobs quickly in the cotton

fields, but this did not ease their minds about why they were forced out of their homes.

Two black men interviewed for a newspaper article told the truth about how they and

their community felt about the situation. Luke Jefferson was fifty years old and had

lived in Comanche County for sixteen years. “I tell you the colored folks are scared.

There has been a heap of bad niggers in the county and we have got to suffer for them.

Four men came to my house Monday and told me I had to go and all other darkies

around me. They had guns and told me they meant business. The white folks is awful

mad and will kill niggers that stay.”20

Joe Butler, a thirty-two-year-old mulatto man thought that the people in

Comanche County would eventually get over their anger and fear and let the good

blacks, who behaved and followed the rules, return to their homes. While Butler agreed

that those who broke the rules and hurt others deserved to die by hanging, he believed

this punishment resulted unfairly from their actions. In addition, Butler also believed

18
“Negroes Ordered Away,” New York Times, 30 July 1886, 1.
19
Between 1880 and 1890, the black population in Comanche County dropped from a total of 79 to
a staggering 8. Historical Census Browser.
20
“Negroes Ordered Away.”
 24

that the blacks who behaved badly toward white women and children were newcomers to

the area. In his defense, Butler’s comments sought to assure white citizens that only

those blacks who were new to the community would perform such acts, not the people

who had lived in the area longer.21

About a month after blacks came to Fort Worth after being driven out of nearby

communities, the city’s whites became equally annoyed when some of the refugee

African Americans were idle and caused problems around the city.

There is a determination that refugee negroes in any considerable numbers shall not
locate in towns and cities that have not hitherto had many black citizens. The town
negroes, as a rule, are not good citizens. They congregate in low quarters of the city
and make life almost unendurable to whites living within earshot of them. The recent
exodus from Comanche County and the influx of numbers from other counties, caused
by the drought, have added largely to the population of half-idle negroes, who quickly
become vicious . . . . In this city the police are kept busy arresting gangs of negro
loafers who have lately arrived. The negro quarters are being extended beyond limits
hitherto known, and several property owners here have been expostulated with for
renting to this class . . . Negroes who should be in the common fields are found idle in
the places of vice and in many cases making night hideous by their orgies . . . How to
get rid of the surplus of undesirable blacks is the problem now being anxiously
considered. 22

Fort Worth’s white citizens became nervous about the sudden increase of blacks within

the city. As the article insisted, the city had never experienced such a flood of African

Americans. Between 1880 and 1890, the black population in Fort Worth doubled, from

2,160 black residents to 4,316. In direct reaction to the need for housing, African

Americans began to penetrate areas that whites believed was their domain. Segregated

property boundaries began being stretched, making white citizens uneasy, because they

21
Ibid.
22
“War on Idle Blacks,” New York Times, 7 September 1886, 1.
 25

might soon live next door to an African American—an experience with which whites in

the city had never dealt before.23

African American Fort Worth neighborhoods in the late nineteenth century lay

primarily on the east side of town. The 1890 city directory commonly listed large

numbers of black residents as living on the east side of numbered streets, Weatherford

Avenue, and Bluff Avenue. Other residential addresses included Rusk, Calhoun, Elm,

Jones, Taylor, Harding, Louisiana Avenue, and Missouri Avenue. An African

American’s name listed with a west side address indicated that they lived with their

white employer. Out of the 1,047 African Americans listed in the 1890 city directory,

approximately 9.46 per cent lived with their employer, working as cooks, porters, nurses,

or domestics.24 The majority of blacks in Fort Worth lived in the Third Ward, which

stretched from 9th Street and Jones to East Lancaster. This area of the city not only

housed the majority of Irish immigrants but also included Hell’s Half Acre, Fort Worth’s

redlight district. (Fig. 4)

There were two other pockets of African Americans around the city. Stop Six

was a little town formerly known as Cowanville whose name changed because it was the

sixth stop on the electric interurban trolley between Fort Worth and Dallas. Terry’s

Plantation was located on Colonel Nathaniel Terry’s original plot of land between

Samuel Avenue and the Trinity River by the railroad tracks. (Fig. 3)

Just as white Fort Worth citizens did not want to have black residential neighbors,

they also preferred to be separate in the afterlife. On 18 April 1878, two aldermen,

23
Historical Census Browser.
24
D.S. Clark’s City Directory of the Inhabitants, Manufacturing Establishments, Institutions,
Business Firms, etc. in the City of Fort Worth, TX (Fort Worth, TX: TX Printing and Lithography Co.,
1890), 57-276.
 26

Fig. 4. The first figure is a strip of Jones Street from 14th through 17th Street in 1885. The
second figure portrays the same area, although including 9th through 13th Street, in present day
Fort Worth. Reprinted respectively from Digital Sanborn Maps 1867-1970, Fort Worth, Texas
1885, sheet 10 and Google Maps.com, http://maps.google.com/maps?
q=Fort+Worth,+TX, Date Accessed: 18 February 2007.

Alderman Jackson and Alderman Holmes, both white, suggested to the City Council to

build a community cemetery, rather than separate ones for blacks and whites. The two

men stated in the Fort Worth Daily Democrat that, “after death, it mattered little where a

man was buried, or who happened to be his next door neighbor, and as a matter of

economy, he would favor the purchase of a burial ground for the use of the general

public, irrespective of rank or color.” The other councilmen, however, did not see the

situation in such economical terms as Jackson and Holmes. The following argument
 27

ensued in which an editorial in the same issue of the Daily Democrat proclaimed that

“Holmes and Jackson may not object to being buried close up alongside of a negro, but

we venture the assertion that seven-eighths of the white citizens of the Fort would

object.”25

Fort Worth’s segregated residential boundaries gave way during the two African

American migrations in the United States between 1915 to 1930 and 1940 to 1970. As

the economy began shifting toward industrial production rather than agriculture,

thousands of African Americans moved from rural areas to urban centers. The transition

from a predominately rural country to an urban one created upheaval within established

neighborhoods. Change in Fort Worth’s residential layout came whether white citizens

wanted it to or not; however, this transition was not quick. In 1938, the Fort Worth City

Council voted to change the location of a proposed low-cost black housing project near a

white community based on the argument that “the Negroes do not want to encroach on

white resident’s territory but want another noncontroversial site be selected.”26 By

making it appear that African Americans preferred segregation between neighborhoods,

the city council delayed even the slightest hint of residential integration for a few more

years. This accomplished setback only created a false impression of cooperation between

the city’s racial groups. Continuing to ignore the problem at hand only led to further

tension between the races throughout the city.

As African Americans continued moving to Fort Worth, they settled directly in

the central city, forcing white residents to face a world of residential integration. White

families already living in Fort Worth moved out to the suburbs and those migrating to

25
“Don’t Mix Them,” Fort Worth Daily Democrat, 18 April 1878.
26
“Fort Worth Addition Fights Negro Residents,” Dallas Morning News, 24 November 1938, 3.
 28

Fort Worth immediately settled in suburbs. This is not to say that all blacks lived in the

hub of Fort Worth and whites lived in a ring around the city, but this occurred fully

enough for the trend to be given a name: “dark core—white ring” or “white flight.”27

This residential segregation was the main starting point for the continued segregation in

Fort Worth—directly affecting schools and businesses.

Relegated to the less than desirable locations in town, African American fell

victim to further discrimination in terms of housing prices and property taxes. In a study

held in 1968, William S. Hendon discovered that between 1958 and 1963 African

Americans on average paid approximately $2,000 more for a house than white residents

did in Fort Worth. Added to this type of financial discrimination, property tax assessors

evaluated black housing at higher prices over white housing, no matter what the condition

of the house was like. By claiming a higher property value, African American

homeowners’ property taxes were higher than white homeowners’ taxes, even though

many times black housing was more rundown than whites.28

Because African Americans could not earn as much money as whites, their

neighborhoods literally became slums when blacks could not afford to maintain their

houses or move to a better area. By 1951, there were fourteen predominantly African

American neighborhoods in Fort Worth where residential housing was small, dilapidated,

and lacked indoor plumbing in most of those areas. Fort Worth city officials realized the

poor state these neighborhoods were in, and with help from development groups such as

27
Earl Brown, Cowtown 1977: A Social Analysis of Fort Worth, Texas (Fort Worth: Department of
Sociology, Texas Wesleyan College, 1978), 89.
28
William S. Hendon, “Discrimination against Negro Homeowners in Property Tax Assessment,”
American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 27, no. 2 (1968), 125-132.
 29

the National Urban League, the number of dilapidated houses and outhouses diminished

rapidly by 1970 (Tables 1 and 2).

Table 1. Housing Conditions for Fort Worth by Total and Non-White, 1950

Good Condition Dilapidated and

With all Plumbing Lacking some or all Plumbing
(N) (%) (N) (%)
Total 62,448 71.5 24,879 28.5
Non-White 2,955 27.7 7,713 72.3
Source: Earl Brown, Cowtown 1977: A Social Analysis of Fort Worth, Texas (Fort
Worth: Department of Sociology, Texas Wesleyan College, 1978), 558-61.

Table 2. Housing Conditions for Fort Worth by Total and Black, 1970

With all Plumbing Lacking some or all Plumbing

(N) (%) (N) (%)
Total 136,171 97.9 2,930 2.1
Black 20,787 95.7 931 4.3
Source: Brown, Cowtown 1977, 553-55.

Even before the city began to implement true residential integration in the 1970s

and 1980s, whites always seemed threatened when blacks moved into their

predominantly white neighborhoods. Houses and cars were bombed in the 1920s by the

Ku Klux Klan and African Americans were hanged in effigy as threats to leave the

community.29 On 19 June 1939, a crowd of five hundred white Fort Worth citizens

attacked the residence of Otis Flake and his family in protest against the black family

living in an otherwise all-white neighborhood.30 The Flake family lived there less than a

week, and police kept a close eye on the area as they dispersed crowds that assembled on

nearby street corners. The mob gathered and attacked the Flakes’ house, despite the

29
“Negroes Told to Vacate Houses,” Fort Worth Press, 10 July 1926.
30
“Fort Worth Crowd Raids Negro Home,” Dallas Morning News, 20 June 1939, 6.
 30

policemen’s watch over the previous four nights. Men took furniture and items out of the

house while the police were helpless to restrain the mob due to the sheer size of the

crowd. All of the night’s violence resulted from an outcry against African Americans

encroaching on what had previously been all white neighborhoods. Even seventeen years

later African Americans fought to gain acceptance into what had been predominantly

white communities. In 1956 when Lloyd and Macie Austin, a family with a young

daughter, moved into the Riverside community in Fort Worth, their new white neighbors

picketed in front of their house and threatened to kill the family.31 The family refused to

move and the protests died down, but this was only one example of similar events that

occurred all over Texas and the United States. African Americans constantly battled

white protests when they integrated all-white neighborhoods. Somehow, the black

families were the ones to blame for the white riots, protests, and bombings that occurred.

Residential segregation and the problems and setbacks associated with residential

integration between white and African American residents were only the beginning story

of Fort Worth’s African American past. By 1865, all blacks in Texas were freedmen and

slavery was abolished forever. For the previous twenty years, Texas only knew slavery

and prejudice. As the rest of the post-Civil War nation celebrated or despised the new

segment of the American public, each city had to adjust to this permanent change in the

social structure. Fort Worth suddenly faced new difficulties as a southern city that

blossomed after the Civil War. Previously, white citizens worried about slave revolts and

whether Texas should withdraw from the Union along with their southern neighbors.

Now, both white and black Fort Worth citizens shared new concerns, which affected both

31
Tim Madigan, “Showdown on Judkins Street,” www.kri.com/papers/greatstories/
worth/jimcrow1.html; Date Accessed: 18 April 2005.
 31

races, although both approached each issue from opposite ends. Suddenly, free blacks

competed on the same job market, opened new businesses, required a residential section

of the city, and demanded equal rights including voting opportunities, education, and

employment. The nation’s social and economic structures changed rapidly by 1875 and

Fort Worth had to respond. The city thrived economically but struggled to keep up

socially, along with other southern cities, as African Americans within the city found

their voice and their strength to demand more than simply the bare minimum. As blacks

in Fort Worth adapted to their new freedom and sought equality, a large majority of Fort

Worth’s white citizens found it difficult to adapt along with them. African Americans

found themselves in a new position within the city and, through the decades, they

experienced both success and failure.

 CHAPTER THREE

Obstacles and Successes Within Fort Worth’s Expanding Economy

The years after 1870 saw a tremendous growth in Fort Worth’s economy and

population. The 1880 census shows that there was an increase of 326.2 percent in

Tarrant County’s population as the total number jumped from 5,788 residents in 1870 to

24,671 in 1880. Two main factors contributed to this huge rise in population: railroads

and the meatpacking industry. The Texas and Pacific Railroad came to Fort Worth on 19

July 1876, and other rail lines came to the city such as the Missouri-Kansas-Texas, the

Santa Fe, and the St. Louis Southwestern, to name a few.1 Railroads brought a larger

commercial market to the city. Previously, Fort Worth was a central spot for cattle

drivers. Now with the railroad, beef products were shipped faster to the rest of the nation

and created a boom in the cattle industry. Armour and Company and Swift and

Company, the two largest meatpacking companies in the nation, came to Fort Worth by

the 1890s. With the presence of two well-known meatpacking companies, Fort Worth

saw a boom in the beef industry and an increase in employment opportunities. By 1880,

Tarrant County had fifty-eight manufacturing establishments, ranking the county as the

tenth most industrial Texas county. Ten years later, the city’s manufacturing businesses

soared to 321.2

1
For more information on the railroad coming to Fort Worth, see Sandra L. Myres, “Fort Worth,
1870-1900,” Southwestern Historical Quarterly, 72 (October 1968), 200-222.
2
Historical Census Browser, retrieved from the University of Virginia, Geospatial and Statistical
Data Center, http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/collections/stats/histcensus/index.html, Date Accessed: 9 May
2006.

32
 33

The increase in businesses created a comparable rise in employment. The 1890

census shows that out of 41,142 residents in Tarrant County, 2,718 people worked within

the new industrial areas in the city compared to 163 employees ten years earlier. Average

weekly wages for employees were approximately $1.32 higher than the state average.

White males in positions as officers, firm members, and clerks within manufacturing

businesses on average earned $17.68 per week while their female counterparts earned

$11.00 per week. Skilled and unskilled workers in Tarrant County, while earning less,

still brought in a higher wage than did other Texas laborers. Males sixteen years of age

and older received $13.75 per week in Fort Worth compared to the Texas average of

$8.78. Comparatively, females sixteen years of age and older working in Fort Worth

industrial companies earned $6.22 per week while children received $3.36 per week for

their work. Overall, the manufacturing economy in Fort Worth began to flourish,

bringing more opportunity for both black and white workers to earn a decent paycheck,

mainly due to the newly built railroads. The railroads also brought economic

opportunities to other areas of commerce, especially agriculture.3

The land surrounding Fort Worth grew crops that included mainly of cotton, corn,

and wheat. The farming economy in Texas rose, and the number of farms increased from

534 in 1870 to 2,791 in 1880. A better economy brought in more people to the area as

more job opportunities sprang up, especially for African Americans. Within ten years,

the black population in Fort Worth almost tripled from 705 at the end of the Civil War to

2,160 in 1880. By the turn of the century Fort Worth packinghouses employed a large

number of citizens, including African Americans. Ex-slaves like Giles Smith and Henry

3
Historical Census Browser. These numbers reflect a combined total for white and African
American workers.
 34

Probasco, came back to the city to work forty years after becoming free and worked for

the packing companies.4 Not only were there jobs in manufacturing as technology

produced machines that required unskilled labor to tend, but sharecropping also became

increasingly dominant throughout the southern states.

A little less than half of the farms in Tarrant County were engaged in

sharecropping in the 1880 census, with 1,159 farms rented for a share of total products

and profit. Sharecropping was not solely a white landowner and black tenant ordeal.

Black and white families rented shares of land from large farms and grew crops. In

exchange for land to live on and use to raise crops, tenants gave a portion of either their

earnings at market or their actual product to the landowner as payment. While this gave

blacks more occupational venues and the ability to use the knowledge they learned as

slaves working in the fields, sharecropping soon became closely compared to slavery.5

The entire system created a vicious cycle of debt which most tenants could not

repay. Most sharecroppers did not own their own farming equipment, which included

tools, machinery, and seeds. To obtain these farm implements, sharecroppers had two

options. Either they borrowed from their landlords for a monetary amount which they

paid back after the harvest, or they bought the items at a general store on a tab. In both

cases, the amount due generally cost more than what the sharecropper earned at market

after paying rent to their landlords and therefore accrued through the seasons.

Landowners also occasionally created excuses to collect more money or produce from

4
Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936-1938; WPA Slave
Narrative Project, Texas Narratives, Volume 16, Part 4; Federal Writers’ Project, United States Work
Projects Administration (USWPA); Manuscript Division, Library of Congress; [on-line database]; available
from http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/S?ammem/mesnbib:@field(STATE+@od1(Texas)), accessed 16
February 2006. [Hereafter referred to as USWPA].
5
Historical Census Browser.
 35

their tenants, thereby preventing sharecroppers from making a large profit at the market.

In a recent radio documentary concerning black experiences in the southern states during

the Jim Crow era, Amelia Robinson related an incident that typified what sharecroppers

encountered with the landowners.

For instance, here’s a man with ten children. In December, he’s told . . . to come to
the big house and have a settlement. Okay, the settlement would go like this. “Well,
John, you made twenty-five bails of cotton. And now you know that the old mule
died, had to have another mule, got to pay for that. Now John, your daughter took sick
and you called me and told me you had to take her to the doctor and I had to call the
doctor up. You know it costs some money for that, so I’ll take that out. Now John,
you’re almost out of debt, but you’re not out of debt yet.”6

Many sharecroppers never earned enough money from their work to pay off their debts

and buy their own land, and often when the fathers died, they passed on the debt to their

children and grandchildren.7

Not all African Americans in Fort Worth fell into the snare of sharecropping. The

first black to open his own business in Fort Worth was John Pratt.8 He opened a

blacksmith shop on the corner of Weatherford and Rusk Street. The shop mainly catered

to the black community and was not well frequented until Major K. M. Van Zandt, a

leading white city figure, returned from the Civil War. Van Zandt opened a store

downtown and went to Pratt’s store, which brought other customers to Pratt. This boost

from a well-known white figure within the community prompted a rise in patrons and

6
Remembering Jim Crow: African Americans Tell about Life in the Segregated South (New York:
New Press, 2001), compact disc.
7
For more information on sharecropping, refer to Donna L. Franklin’s Ensuring Inequality: The
Structural Transformation of the African-American Family (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997);
David Eugene Conrad, The Forgotten Farmers: The Story of Sharecroppers in the New Deal (Urbana, IL:
University of Illinois Press, 1965); and Gerald David Jaynes, Branches Without Roots: Genesis of the Black
Working Class in the American South, 1862-1882 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986).
8
Ben H. Standifer, Jr, “The Black Business District: 1900-1940,” (class paper at Texas Christian
University, 1998).
 36

signified the beginning of white businesses occasionally helping black businesses in early

Fort Worth.

Between 1870 and 1880, job opportunities opened for everyone, but black

positions remained limited mostly to unskilled laborers such as woodcutters, bootblacks,

janitors, slaughters, maids, and cattle drivers. Other jobs for blacks included cooks,

midwives, blacksmiths, herb doctors, farmers, and miners.9 The city government and

other city services such as the police force continued to bar blacks from being hired, even

though in 1886 there was only one policeman per ward in the city. Despite this apparent

need, the city only hired white men for police positions.10

At the end of the nineteenth century, a high percentage of the city’s African

American occupations became identifiable by gender. (Table 3) Men tended to be

mostly porters and general laborers, while women worked as nurses, cooks, or

laundresses. A porter’s job could consist of a number of duties, but the work hardly

Table 3. Top Jobs for Male and Female Colored Workers in Fort Worth, 1890

Primary Gender Occupation No. Per Cent

Male porter 106 10.12
Male railroader 39 3.72
Male waiter 35 3.34
Male hostler 16 1.53
Female laundress 156 14.90
Female nurse 10 .96
Coed laborer 180 17.19
Coed cook 109 10.41
Source: D.S. Clark’s City Directory of the Inhabitants, Manufacturing Establishments,
Institutions, Business Firms, etc. in the City of Fort Worth, Texas (Fort Worth, TX: TX
Printing and Lithography Co., 1890).

9
“Fort Worth Locals,” Dallas Morning News, 26 March 1889, 6.
10
“Fort Worth Local Record,” Dallas Morning News, 18 August 1886, 3.
 37

required any skill. Various aspects of the work included admitting people through doors,

carrying baggage, assisting patrons in parlor or sleeping cars, or carrying out routine

cleaning. In the same vein, the most common jobs available for African American

women did not require in-depth knowledge. The practice of being a nurse at the turn of

the century did not immediately imply working alongside doctors in sanitariums.

Individuals hired nurses to be caretakers for their children or to help an ailing person feel

more comfortable within their home. Though these jobs filled various needs throughout

the city’s white-owned businesses, the job requirements remained geared to unskilled

labor.

Black entrepreneurs who obtained skills and learned a trade rose above the

stereotype that African Americans were easily hired as unskilled labor. (Table 4) By

Table 4. Short Listing of African American Businesses and Entrepreneurs, 1890

S. W. Woodard ................................................ boot and shoemaker; business @ 908 Elm

Mrs. Rachael Nash ...................restaurant owner; located on 12th St. between Main, Rusk
T. H. Daily ............................................... proprietor of a laundry; business @ 1110 Jones
Dr. W. E. Davis ................................ physician and surgeon; office located @ 1304 Main
E. Hines ........................................................... proprietor of the Fort Worth City Laundry
H. Johnson and David Moore .... Johnson & Moore, groceries & confectionaries; located
on 6th St. between Terry, Elm
S. D. Russell ........... pastor at A.M.E. Church and owner and editor of Torchlight Appeal
William M. York ............................................................... barber; business @ 1103 Main
Source: D.S. Clark’s City Directory, 101, 103, 147, 159, 198, 225, 273, 275.

1888, several Fort Worth African Americans opened their own businesses in the black

community. The black business district in the city was on 9th Street, between Calhoun

and Jones. The area, only three blocks long, soon gained the nickname the “9th Street

drag.” The local city directories listed names and businesses owned by and catering to

African Americans, such as doctors, saloons, hotels, grocers, and newspapers.

 38

Incomplete records do not allow historians further knowledge about black

business accomplishments or longevity, especially regarding black newspapers. The fact

that black newspapers existed, however, indicates that African Americans in the young

city felt connected to one another. The first African American newspaper was the

Torchlight-Appeal, edited by S. D. Russell. The paper’s first reference came in the 1890

Fort Worth city directory, but by 1894, both Russell and the Torchlight-Appeal had

disappeared from the directory. Apparently early black newspapers, like the Torchlight-

Appeal, existed for one year at most, and either another editor’s paper replaced it or the

paper simply ceased publication. In 1892-93, Jullian T. Bailey, a local black attorney,

edited Bailey’s Free South, and in 1894-95, Jay W. Taylor and James C. Scott issued the

Item.11

Not all occupations open to African Americans were reputable, though. As a

central hub for cattle drivers, the early years of Fort Worth saw saloons, brothels,

dancehalls, and run down shacks in an area located between 11th and 12th Street on Main

Street dubbed Hell’s Half Acre. Prostitution in Fort Worth remained open to both black

and white and there is evidence that men of all races sought after African American

prostitutes. In a newspaper article condemning the city’s redlight district, a reporter

wrote, “First impressions are difficult to overcome, and the man who rides up Main or

Rusk Street on his first visit to Fort Worth and sees the negro courtesans flaunting their

shamelessness and greasy mother hubbards in the public eye has received an impression

hard to eradicate.”12

11
Morrison and Fourmy’s General Directory of the City of Fort Worth, 1894-1895, 69.
12
“The State Press: What the Papers Throughout Texas are Talking About,” Dallas Morning News
22 September 1889, 6. This part of the article is referring to an article in the (Fort Worth?) Gazette.
 39

Fort Worth citizen’s soon saw Hell’s Half Acre as a blight on the city. On 31

March 1887, the city’s law enforcement officers attempted to clean up the district after

many citizens wrote complaints to the local newspapers about the area.13 The police

arrested prostitutes, drifters, and people deemed as lazy. In all, twenty-two African

American prostitutes were arrested and placed in the county jail. Later the same day the

police imprisoned white prostitutes, but they posted bail and did not have to stay in jail.

By October 1889, the police had completely wiped out Hell’s Half Acre, and the city

began rebuilding the area to erase the unpleasant image of what had existed there for

more than thirty years.14

At the beginning of the twentieth century, agriculture remained a large factor in

Fort Worth’s economic activity. In 1910, there were 3,582 farms in Tarrant County, with

whites still owning the majority of land—96.5 percent compared to 3.5 percent owned by

black and other non-white farmers. Within ten years, however, farming declined and

manufacturing remained steady in the city. By 1920, farms had decreased to 3,336, and

manufacturing concerns, although decreasing from 321 businesses in 1900 to 257 in

1920, produced a wide variety of products. With the rise in factory and business

production, job opportunities for African Americans also increased, but they remained

segregated. In 1913 positions as railway mail clerks were open to black men, but the

Railway Mail Association’s committee decided to make sure that white mail clerks had

separate runs from black mail clerks. In an article in the Dallas Morning News, a section

of the Railway Mail Association’s meeting displayed how even government businesses

13
“Fort Worth Notes,” Dallas Morning News, 1 April 1887, 7.
14
“City Schools Progressing; New Buildings Going Up,” Dallas Morning News, 26 December
1887, 5. For more information about Fort Worth’s red light district see Richard F. Selcer, Hell’s Half Acre:
The Life and Legend of a Red Light District (Fort Worth, TX: Texas Christian University Press, 1991).
 40

preferred to stay segregated. “It has plainly been demonstrated that it is to the advantage

of all concerned that the negro clerks be given separate assignments from those of the

Caucasian race, and that as in other departments of the Government service such

segregation of the two races has already been effected, this committee deems it advisable

for the races to be separated, and we further request immediate steps be taken to that

end.”15

A 1907 colored directory listed businesses owned by Fort Worth blacks, including

twenty-three hotels and rooming houses, nine barbershops, seven tailors, and eight

doctors. All of these businesses, located mainly in the black business district downtown,

catered primarily to other African Americans, but some occupations held a little leeway

in regards to working with and for white patrons. For example, Mary Keys Gipson

moved to Fort Worth about 1872 and eventually became the first African American

woman in the South to receive a nursing certificate from an accredited school. Gipson

graduated from the Chatauqua School of Nursing in Jamestown, New York on 2 March

1907 and came back to Fort Worth to work with a variety of white doctors.16

Sam Kilgore was an ex-slave who learned from every experience throughout his

life. When he was younger, John Peacock owned Kilgore in Williams County,

Tennessee. During the Civil War, he joined the Confederate Army and served as the

valet and companion of his master’s son, Frank Peacock. Frank Peacock died shortly

after his promotion to colonel, and Kilgore came to Texas after the war with his former

master. A year after Sam Kilgore came to Texas he joined the United States Army for

“de Indian war.” After the campaigning against Native Americans in the West, Kilgore

15
“Want Negro Railway Clerks Segregated,” Dallas Morning News, 8 May 1913.
16
“Ex-Slave Here First in South to Become Nurse,” in Williams, In Old Fort Worth, 15.
 41

served in the Spanish-American War in 1898 and 1899. In all three wars he hardly saw

combat because he always worked with the supplies, but his experiences proved to be to

his benefit. Kilgore came to Fort Worth shortly after the Spanish-American War and

learned cement work from John Bardon. In 1917, Kilgore started his own cement

contracting business, which was still in operation at the time of the Slave Narrative

project interviews in the 1930s.17

By the 1920s, Fort Worth was one of the major economic powerhouses in Texas.

The economy had moved further away from agriculture and farming toward

manufacturing, especially related to the stockyards. The city’s factories manufactured

various products for the nation and contained a major railroad center in the Southwest

that allowed these products to ship to various national markets. The city had three central

packinghouses in north Fort Worth, which included the Fort Worth Packing Company

established by local businessmen in 1890 and the nationally known Armour and Swift

plants.18 (Fig. 5) The stockyards and railroads accounted for a large percentage of

African American jobs, especially in the late 1800s. In the 1890 Fort Worth city

directory, 3.72 percent of occupations listed for black residents included jobs such as

railroader, wiper at the Texas and Pacific roundhouse, and laborer for various train line

freight depots. Seven railway companies ran through the city and employed thousands of

residents. These railroad companies included the Fort Worth and Denver City Railway;

17
USWPA, 258.
18
Information about the Fort Worth Packing Company from J’Nell Pate, North of the River: A
Brief History of North Fort Worth (Fort Worth, TX: Texas Christian University Press, 1994), 18. The
Armour and Swift packing plants closed in 1971. A few years after closing the plant, a fire swept through
the buildings and destroyed them except for the administrative offices. An historical marker now stands
where the plants used to be. For more information about the Fort Worth stockyards, see J’Nell Pate,
Livestock Legacy: The Fort Worth Stockyards, 1887-1987 (College Station, TX: Texas A&M University
Press, 1988).
 42

Fig. 5. The Fort Worth stockyards and Armour & Co. were located along N. Main and E.
Exchange Ave. in northern Fort Worth. This map portrays the layout of the stockyard cattle pens
and feed storage in 1911. Reprinted from Digital Sanborn Maps 1867-1970, Fort Worth, Texas
1910-1911, vol. 2, 1911, sheet 182.
 43

the Fort Worth and Rio Grande Railway; the Gulf, Colorado, and Santa Fe Railway, the

Houston and Texas Central Railway; the Missouri, Kansas, and Texas Railway; the St.

Louis, Arkansas, and Texas Railway; and the Texas and Pacific Railway.19

By 1924 nine refineries that produced petroleum products valued at

approximately $52 million annually, four factories that made tools and oil well supplies

for oil drilling in Texas, and the only helium gas plant in the United States. In addition to

these plants, a total of 381 factories produced various goods and services such as

furniture, flour, feed, cottonseed oil, clothing, pottery, chemicals, and brick, all of which

employed 16,000 people and increased the city’s economy. In 1924, the city boasted a

municipal zoo, thirty-one parks, and two “super-skyscrapers” that were twenty-four

stories and twenty stories high, respectively.20

In the city’s occupational sphere, however, blacks continued to be relegated

mostly to unskilled or semi-skilled labor. In 1921, the Amalgamated Butcher Workman

Union went on a nationwide strike against the Swift and Armour meatpacking plants in

an attempt to obtain higher wages. At the time, Fort Worth suffered from high

unemployment, so unskilled black strikebreakers quickly filled the gaps left by the

strikers. As in most U.S. cities, strikes created tension between strikers and

strikebreakers, which could culminate in violence. White and African American

strikebreakers risked their lives as they sought work, especially while white policemen

did virtually nothing to protect them from the strikers’ wrath until it was too late. The

1921 strike resulted in the lynching of Fred Rouse, an African American strikebreaker,

19
D.S. Clark’s City Directory of the Inhabitants, Manufacturing Establishments, Institutions,
Business Firms, etc. in the City of Fort Worth, Texas (Fort Worth, TX: TX Printing and Lithography Co.,
1890), 57.
20
Wortham, 235-38.
 44

who was beaten, shot, and hanged shortly after he walked through the picket line and shot

two men, Tom and Tracy Maclin, in an attempt to break away from an angry crowd of

strikers.21 The shots Rouse fired, however, proved to be nonfatal to the Maclin brothers,

but resulted in death for Rouse. Previously, throughout the day, the packinghouse

strikers had not created problems for the nonunion strikebreakers aside from vocally

taunting them, but Tom and Tracy Maclin, along with a crowd of other raucous strikers

accosted Rouse as he left the factory. While walking through the already frenzied crowd

of picketers, someone yelled that Rouse would not work the following morning. Rouse

became the target of the strikers’ malice when he responded to the threat by proclaiming,

“I’ll bet you $100 that I will be back in the morning at 7 o’clock.” The Maclin brothers

and the other strikers violently confronted Rouse simply because he wanted to work.

This decision, unfortunately, resulted in Rouse’s death.22

While white businesses and city mandates continued to hold Fort Worth blacks at

bay, the city’s black businesses acted as social gatherings for the African American

community. Such businesses included the Greenleaf Cafe, located on 9th Street, between

Calhoun and Jones, owned by Levi Cooper, and the Jim Hotel, an African American

hotel with a famous jazz club that attracted musical legends such as Cab Calloway, T-

Bone Walker, and Duke Ellington.23

21
Barry T. Sandlin, “The 1921 Butcher Workmen Strike in Fort Worth, Texas” (M.A. thesis,
University of Texas at Arlington, 1988). For more information about Texas labor unions and especially in
Fort Worth, see “Labor Resources at The Center for American History,” www.cah.utexas.edu/guides/
labor.htm, Date Accessed: 18 April 2005.
22
“Negro Shoots Strikers and is Severely Beaten by Mob in Fort Worth,” Dallas Morning News, 7
December 1921.
23
Standifer, 15.
 45

Black Texans in Fort Worth not only created their own businesses, but also rose

to leadership status in the African American community, bringing influence and

encouragement when needed most. During the First World War, African Americans

continued to try to take part in important ventures, not only to attempt to break the color

barrier, but also to help their country. In 1917, the National Council of Defense

reorganized the medical section for World War I to bring cooperation to and coordination

of various health organizations such as the Red Cross and the Texas State Board of

Health. The committee accepted applications for the medical reserve corps and reviewed

more than 150 applicants in Texas, including an African American physician. In an

article describing the effort, a journalist wrote, “A negro doctor today sent in his

application and gave excellent recommendations. His was the first application from a

negro physician. He will probably be recommended for a commission to serve with one

of the negro regiments to be drafted, it is believed.”24

Andy Nelson, a former slave, became the leader of a small African American

settlement called Moser Valley, ten miles east of Fort Worth.25 Even more of a leader

within the black community was William “Gooseneck” McDonald. McDonald became a

champion for Fort Worth African American solidarity and business prowess through his

involvement with fraternal organizations and business success. Born 22 June 1866 at

College Mound, Texas, McDonald, whose parents were former slaves, became the first

major black business owner in Fort Worth. He came to Fort Worth as a young man

seeking work and better wages. McDonald quickly became involved with a fledgling

organization, the Seven Stars of Consolidation of America in 1882. Four years later

24
“Physicians to Meet at Fort Worth Today,” Dallas Morning News, 3 July 1917.
25
USWPA, 8 July 1937, 145-47.
 46

McDonald joined three other local chapters of fraternal institutions: the Knights of

Pythias, the Odd Fellows, and the Prince Hall Free and Accepted Masons. His oratorial

skills quickly gained McDonald prominence within the various local chapters as well as

within the city’s African American society. A few of McDonald’s early

accomplishments included using fraternal money to provide members with insurance and

death benefits, paying poll taxes for African American voters within the community, and

starting a bank in 1911. Five Fort Worth fraternal organization chapters helped fund the

African American bank: the Knights of Pythias, the Heroines of Jericho, the Ancient

Order of Pilgrims, the Odd Fellows, and the Prince Hall Free and Accepted Masons. To

raise the money, each member purchased shares of the new venture for $11 each. The

Fraternal Bank and Trust Company proved a success. The bank became a depository for

the 22,334 blacks in Fort Worth and served African American customers throughout

Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Nevada26

A successful businessman, McDonald became one of the richest African

American men in the South during his life. His investments totaled between one third to

half a million dollars in the early twentieth century. As a self-made man, McDonald

often expounded upon the belief of self-help and black solidarity:

If you want a beautiful home, go build it. If you want concrete sidewalks, go have
them put down . . . . Do you wish to have Negro clerks in grocery stores? Go and
establish you a bank . . . . Do you wish to have Negroes manage great business
concerns and great enterprises? Go and establish them. Treat these as we have the
church and lodge – stand by them, support them and feel that you are honored when
you support and maintain business enterprises managed and controlled by Negroes for
the benefit of our race.27

26
Cary, 106.
27
William M. McDonald, Speech at Shreveport, Louisiana, 1 January 1919, quoted in Bruce A.
Glasrud, “William M. McDonald: Business and Fraternal Leader,” in Black Leaders: Texans for Their
Times, ed. Alwyn Barr and Robert A. Calvert (Austin: Texas State Historical Association, 1981), 103.
 47

McDonald was an inspiration for the city’s African Americans to stand tall and

accomplish anything they dreamed. He encouraged other black citizens to embrace their

ability to excel in their individual entrepreneurial endeavors. While McDonald believed

that the African American community must decide to achieve great things, he also knew

that in a society in which African Americans were the minority, contact and cooperation

with whites were essential.28

McDonald was not the only one who encouraged such accomplishments. At least

two organizations existed in the city that helped African American entrepreneurs.

Founded at the turn of the twentieth century, each organization provided unique functions

within Fort Worth’s black business world. The Fort Worth Colored Business Men’s

League No. 3 was organized in May 1905 as part of the National Negro Business League,

a national organization in New York founded by Booker T. Washington.29 This group

provided a network of African American business professionals to help them to know

each other better in the community.

Progressive reform in occupational spheres, however, was not included among

the other forward steps the city took. In 1938, Fort Worth city officials once again

rejected the motion to hire African American policemen to patrol black neighborhoods,

although other Texas cities such as Houston had at least a few black men on their police

payroll. African American leaders requested the addition of twelve black policemen to

work in black residential and business districts in 1946. Police Chief R. E. Dysart

responded to their suggestion with mere excuses. He claimed that the black residential

28
Glasrud, “William M. McDonald,” 83-111.
29
Alwyn Barr, Black Texans: A History of African Americans in Texas, 1528-1995, 2d ed.
(Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1996), 153.
 48

areas were too scattered throughout Fort Worth to assign to current policemen, and there

was not enough money in the budget to hire new people. He further added that he heard

from cities that employed African American police that blacks were “only partially

successful as officers, even among their own people.”30

Thus, blacks in Fort Worth continued to hold menial jobs. By 1940, the United

States national census calculated that 10,082 non-white adults of working age lived in

Fort Worth. Of those, 80 percent worked in domestic service, general service, or

unskilled labor compared to 3 percent working as professionals. Part of the 3 percent

were included in integrated sports, such as baseball. In 1955, two African Americans—

Edward Moore and Maurice (Maury) Wills—joined the Fort Worth team in the Texas

League.31

These percentages persisted for the next three decades. In 1964, the

desegregation of the Fort Worth public school system sparked trends for integration in

other areas of the community such as employment. Although change occurred slowly,

the occupational doors opened for African Americans as the Human Relations Committee

pushed the City of Fort Worth to relax its hiring policies and to create more employment

opportunities. In this same regard, the Human Relations Committee also encouraged

African American youths to take technical and business classes to prepare for the

anticipated “boom” in black employment.32 Such equal employment finally occurred in

1968 when the Fort Worth Star-Telegram hired Cecil Johnson, the first African

30
“City Council Rejects Plan to Employ Negro Policemen,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 4
December 1946.
31
“Fort Worth Will End Color Line,” Dallas Morning News, 19 April 1955, 24.
32
“Opportunities Seen for Negroes Here,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 5 July 1964.
 49

American employee at a white-owned Texas newspaper. In the following two years the

paper hired two more black men.33 Nevertheless, only three men among close to 29,000

black working-age adults by 1970 left nothing much accomplished.

By 1970, predominate job categories held by African Americans were service

work followed by non-transportation operators and privately employed domestics (Table

5). African American family incomes related directly to the restrained employment

Table 5. Fort Worth Black Employment Distribution out of 28,880

Black Employees, 1970

Occupation No. Percentage

Service Workers……………... 7,559 26.2
Operatives except Transport.… 5,904 20.4
Private Household Workers.…. 2,898 10.0
Laborers except Farm.………... 2,849 9.9
Craftsmen and Foremen.……... 2,540 8.8
Clerical……………………….. 2,375 8.2
Professional and Technical........ 1,831 6.3
Transport Equipment Operative 1,768 6.1
Sales…………………………... 582 2.0
Managers and Administrators… 453 1.6
All Farm Work………………... 121 0.5
Source: Brown, Cowtown 1977, 444-55.

opportunities at the end of 1969. Economically, Fort Worth blacks constantly remained

on the bottom tier when compared to whites and Hispanics. The mean income for Fort

Worth blacks in 1969 was $7,135 compared to a national average of $10,999. Fort Worth

African Americans, however, earned approximately $1000 more than the average income

33
Tim Madigan, “Our Own Sins,” www.dfw.com/mld/startelegram/news/special_packages/
spcl/4252415.htm, Date Accessed: 22 January 2005.
 50

for black Texans in the same year. In the same comparison, Fort Worth Latinos earned

an average of $8,661 in 1969 (Table 6).34

Table 6. Income for African Americans and Latinos in Fort Worth, Texas, and the
United States, 1969

Total African Americans Latinos

Mean Per Capita Mean Per Capita Mean Per Capita
Ft Worth 10,971 3,269 7,135 1,861 8,661 1,993
Texas 9,955 2,810 6,118 1,561 6,939 1,521
U.S. 10,999 3,139 7,114 1,818 8,578 2,065
Source: Brown, Cowtown 1977, 528-3.

African Americans in Fort Worth during the early twentieth century definitely

made a place for themselves within the city’s expanding business districts and broadening

economy. They made a transition from agriculture to hourly wages in factories,

restaurants, and local businesses as the railroad took a firm hold on the city’s industry. It

was not long before Fort Worth blacks began to seek jobs only open to white workers,

such as mail carriers, policemen, or journalists in the main city newspaper. Within this

new realm of work, however, African Americans faced a bleak outlook. They were

consistently turned down due to racial prejudices as seen when the city needed more

policemen but rejected African Americans. If they were not declined, Fort Worth blacks

faced the other constant fear of racial violence in relation to work, such as the incident

resulting in the lynching of Fred Rouse in 1921.

Not all blacks in Fort Worth suffered such discrimination, however. As seen in

this chapter, there were substantial numbers of entrepreneurial African Americans who

opened their own businesses within black neighborhoods or along the “9th Street drag.”

34
Earl Brown, Cowtown 1977: A Social Analysis of Fort Worth, Texas (Fort Worth: Department of
Sociology, Texas Wesleyan College, 1978), 528-34.
 51

African American business leaders rose to encourage their brethren and provide quality

services for the community. Through the years since Emancipation, African Americans

in Fort Worth fought for the right to live and work in the city. Their success, however,

could still be considered a minimal triumph. As seen in Table 6, African Americans

earned less than Latinos, another minority group, in 1969. This economic bias did not

deter Fort Worth African Americans from persevering and continuing to better

themselves and their situation with the southern city.

 CHAPTER FOUR

Politics: From Exploitation to a True Voice

Along with practicing physical violence toward African Americans and

resentment of encroaching segregated housing boundaries, white Fort Worth citizens

after the Civil War attempted to bar blacks from embracing freedom by keeping their

political power limited. Whites tried to hold dominion over freed blacks by keeping

them from voting and from gaining free access to public facilities at the beginning of

Reconstruction. These efforts failed when the federal government intervened and set up

protective legislation for African Americans. During this time, blacks could vote and

participate in the Texas Republican Party. In the early years of Fort Worth, however,

white politicians coerced black voters in order to swing the majority of votes their way.

In the 1878 mayoral election in Fort Worth, for example, white candidate Captain Day

made slight improvements to black neighborhoods, such as putting in sidewalks, and had

black political organizers like A. Carter, the “Boss Negro gambler,” give potential voters

liquor and cigars.1 While white politicians earned votes from such antics, African

Americans knew they needed political allies. In January 1897, the Afro-American

Citizens’ Conference, an African American middle-class reform society, already had

their sights on integrating Fort Worth politics by “running a colored man or a colored

1
Reby Cary, Princes Shall Come Out of Egypt, Texas, and Fort Worth (Pittsburgh, PA: Dorrance
Publishing Co., Inc., 2002), 157.

52
 53

man’s representative for City Council from the Third Ward.”2 The progressive

organization, however, was not successful in placing an African American representative

within city government.

As a child, Lou Skelton remembered when African Americans were able to vote.

White men would drive to black settlements to pick up eligible black men who could

vote, but it did not matter to the white men whether or not the African Americans knew

for what or whom they were voting. Skelton remembered that she laughed about how

the black men in her community were treated well one day every year, as if they held

power in their vote. Skelton, however, pinpointed the real reason white men cared

enough to bring black voters in droves to the election booths: “They didn’t even have

any mother-wit, nor any education, but they were asked to do their duty like they were

first rate citizens on Election Day.”3 White politicians offered African American men a

sense of pride and unity during an era when social boundaries kept them at bay.

Ironically, in many cases, black voters believed they did have a political

obligation, at least in the beginning, to vote for the Republican Party, otherwise known as

Lincoln’s ticket. The Republican Party used the African American allegiance to Lincoln

for their political benefit. A newspaper article from the Milam County Vindicator in

1889 claimed that the Republican Party liberated African Americans solely for political

and voting purposes: “No doubt it would have been better for all parties had the negro

2
Richard F. Selcer, Hell’s Half Acre: The Life and Legend of a Red Light District (Fort Worth,
TX: Texas Christian University Press, 1991), 221-22.
3
“Colonel Terry and the Slave Girl,” In Old Fort Worth: The Story of a City and its People as
Published in the News-Tribune in 1976 and 1977 (Fort Worth, TX: Mack H. Williams and Madeline C.
Williams, 1977), 12.
 54

been colonized instead of emancipated; but for power at the ballot-box the republicans

emancipated the negro.”4

After years of subordination in the political arena, African Americans did not stay

ignorant of how white political organizers viewed, neglected, and used them for the

party’s political gain. A Republican convention held in September 1902 in Fort Worth

outraged W. H. Noble, a black editor of the Galveston City Times. Blacks who attended

the convention received little more attention than simply receiving financial help to get to

and from the convention and other financial expenses at the meeting. The Republican

convention’s white majority ignored their opinions and voices, which riled Noble to call

for more political interest within the Texas African American community:

The negro is being minimized by the white Republicans and he is gradually being
showed to the rear. . . . He is in about the most dangerous position today he has
occupied since his freedom. He is fast losing influence and importance in Republican
conventions and when he loses it there he might as well surrender his right to vote.
The white Republicans intend to eliminate him. As long as he is not independent and
as long as he goes, remains and returns from convention at the cost of some white
Republican, the work of elimination will be easy.5

The following month, on 16 October 1902, during the Fort Worth Democratic executive

committee meeting, the members set the rules of the primary election slated for 17

December 1902. The majority ruling was that African Americans would be left out of the

city primaries and only white voters could participate. Only two men from the committee

disagreed with the decision—Dr. Chambers and Mr. Fisher. Chambers argued that it was

bad to set a precedent, which might result in the African American vote going to other

parties and therefore creating a defeat for the Democrats in retaliation for the blatant

4
“The State Press: What the Papers Throughout Texas are Talking About,” Dallas Morning News,
16 September 1889, 4.
5
“Elimination of the Negro,” Dallas Morning News, 12 September 1902, 2.
 55

oversight. Fisher proposed an amendment that would allow blacks who paid the poll tax

to be eligible to vote. After the dismissal of both arguments, the Democratic primary in

Fort Worth barred African Americans once more.6

African Americans continued to fight for their rightful place at the ballot box, but

both the Republican and Democratic primaries persisted in keeping blacks at bay until

the actual election day. If there was even a hint that a white politician favored black

voting in primaries in Fort Worth with any major party at the turn of the century, the

rumor was quickly extinguished. No candidate wanted to be connected to such rumors,

as it would surely ruin his political career. In 1908, a member of the Democratic State

Executive Committee in Fort Worth vehemently denied that he ever said he was for

African Americans being involved in the Democratic primary. In his rebuttal, the

politician stated that it “is obvious in this editorial to besmirch me by pretending that I

advocated the participation of negroes in the primary, when the Record [sic] distinctly

knows that I did not.”7 Two years after the United States Supreme Court handed down

the Smith v. Allwright decision in 1944, allowing blacks to vote in previously all-white

Democratic primaries, Fort Worth blacks were finally able to vote in Fort Worth.

Blacks in Fort Worth tried to extend their voting rights locally in the early

twentieth century and continually struggled to be allowed to vote, but their efforts lacked

unity. During the early twentieth century, Fort Worth blacks supported a reform ticket

that proposed to institute a city-manager type government and remove the revived Hell’s

6
“Exclusion of Negroes,” Dallas Morning News, 17 October 1902, 7.
7
“Reply to Fort Worth Record,” Dallas Morning News, 31 March 1908, 10.
 56

Half Acre from the black part of town.8 Discouraged and tired of their vote being used

only on election days and for white political agendas, a group of African Americans in

Fort Worth met in late 1922. They wanted specifically to gain more political control by

taking part in the Republican primaries. At the meeting R. D. Evans, a black attorney

from Waco, stated, “We don’t propose to stay in the kitchen, then have the Republicans

vote us on election day.” Evans wanted to prove to the two main political party

conventions that African Americans could be trusted with crucial voting decisions. “We

propose to show that we are an asset and not a menace to the State . . . and we intend to

stand for law and order, from the bill of rights to the prohibition amendment.”9 As a

direct result of the meeting, Fort Worth blacks formed a local branch of the Independent

Colored Voters’ League on 15 August 1922.10 This political group vied for voting rights

until the late 1930s. In order to work together further to gain black suffrage, African

Americans formed the Negro Voting League in 1937. By 1939, African American voting

strength in Fort Worth reached a total of three thousand in spite of poll taxes and

exemptions.11 This seemingly small number of black voters allowed their voices,

although weak, to be heard in local affairs.

Many Fort Worth blacks took advantage of their voting privileges and never took

them for granted. Sam Kilgore, an ex-slave who led an extraordinary life before settling

down in Fort Worth, always voted when he could. In an interview from the 1930 Slave

8
Alwyn Barr, Black Texans: A History of African Americans in Texas, 1528-1995, 2d ed.
(Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1996), 133.
9
“Negroes Call Political Meeting at Fort Worth,” Dallas Morning News, 5 August 1922, 8.
10
“Fort Worth Negroes have Branch of Voters’ League,” Dallas Morning News, 18 August
1922, 4.
11
“Negroes Lost Ballot Fight,” Fort Worth, 21 July 1932; and “Negro Vote to be Factor in City
Poll,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 28 March 1939.
 57

Narrative project, Kilgore said that he “voted ev’ry ‘lection and ‘lieves it de duty for

ev’ry citizen to vote.”12 Similar to Kilgore, William M. Thomas came to the city around

1910 and believed that African Americans should vote, but only if they knew what they

were voting for so other people would not take advantage of them or their vote. As seen

at the turn of the twentieth century, white politicians took advantage of African American

voters and Thomas wanted to combat that exploitation.13

Black women, on the other hand, held a very distinct position within the voting

realm. As women, they were not allowed to vote until 1920, when the United States

ratified the Nineteenth Amendment, but as blacks, they felt even more intimidated about

voting. Philles Thomas, an ex-slave, did not vote and did not believe women should

vote.14 Louise Mathews, on the other hand, tried voting once in her life, but did not care

to vote after that. Mathews’ husband, Bill, though, always voted “de Lincoln ticket”—

meaning that he continued the tradition of African Americans by voting for the

Republican Party until the mid-1930s when blacks turned toward the Democratic Party.15

Not all Fort Worth African American women felt the same about voting as did

Thomas and Mathews. In 1918, six Fort Worth African American women wanted to

vote, but when they asked to register, the County Democratic Committee denied their

12
USWPA, n.d., 259, http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=mesn&fileName=
162/mesn162.db&recNum=259&itemLink=S?ammem/mesnbib:@field(AUTHOR+@od1(Kilgore,+Sam));
accessed: 18 February 2006.
13
USWPA, 2 October 1937, 95-99, http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=mesn&
fileName=164/mesn164.db&recNum=100&itemLink=S?ammem/mesnbib:@field(AUTHOR+@od1(Thom
as,+William+M+); accessed: 18 February 2006.
14
USWPA, June 1937, 92-94, http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=mesn&fileName=1
64/mesn164.db&recNum=97&itemLink=S?ammem/mesnbib:@field(AUTHOR+@od1(Thomas,+Philles);
accessed: 18 February 2006.
15
USWPA, n.d., 65-66, http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=mesn&fileName=163/
mesn163.db&recNum=69&itemLink=S?ammem/mesnbib:@field(AUTHOR+@od1(Mathews,+Louise);
accessed: 17 February 2006.
 58

request. The Dallas Morning News published an article about the incident. The reporter

wrote that the women “insisted they be allowed to register.” Further details regarding the

event point to specific significant characteristics about the women. The women were

well dressed, appeared intelligent, and a few arrived at the courthouse in automobiles.

These descriptions indicate that voting was important to the six women, who were more

than likely among the city’s most affluent African Americans.16 This provides further

evidence that Fort Worth’s black citizens wanted inclusion in the decision-making

process for their city, state, and nation.

African American suffrage was important and could have helped blacks make

strides in their place within the state and nation, but without a voice in the city

government, blacks’ opinions still went unheard. But in 1956 their goals were given a

chance to spread to the Fort Worth community. By the end of that year, city officials

created a biracial committee made up of five white men and five African American men,

all of whom were prominent leaders. This committee formed to review and determine

solutions to race relations within the city.17 The creation of the committee came in

conjunction with the evolving changes seen throughout the nation. The previous two

years saw the groundbreaking Brown vs. Board of Education case and the Montgomery

bus boycott in Alabama. As the civil rights movement swept through the nation in the

1950s and into the 1960s, African Americans continued to see political progress.

With the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, politics changed as more

African Americans registered to vote. These changes were seen in all political realms,

16
Ruthe Winegarten, Black Texas Women: 150 Years of Trial and Triumph (Austin: University of
Texas Press, 1995), 210.
17
“Mayor to Announce 10 on Biracial Committee,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 11 September
1956; and “Racial Committee is Named by Mayor,” Fort Worth Press, 12 September 1956.
 59

from national to local. When the President Lyndon B. Johnson first signed the bill into

law August 1965, political theorists debated whether the law would have any effect in

Texas. The law banished the use of literacy tests and charging a poll tax for prospective

voters. By 1965, a majority of Texas counties no longer required a literacy test, thereby

allowing the state to forego any federal involvement to aid African Americans’

admittance on poll lists. The main aspect of the bill for Texas remained in the

abolishment of poll taxes. In a survey of African American and white voters conducted

in 1965, many Texans said they were more likely to register to vote with the elimination

of the tax, which averaged $1.75 in Texas counties. White politicians were not

concerned that African Americans would elect a member of their race into political

office, since blacks did not hold a majority vote in any Texas county aside from Waller

County near Houston. Political scientists, such as Dr. James R. Soukup, who coauthored

“Party and Factional Division in Texas,” claimed that without an increase in African

American political organization, the number of black voters within any Texas county

would not increase.18

Two years later, however, a group of local businessmen and African American

voters in Fort Worth brought about a political change that shook the Texas city. In April

1967, the people of Fort Worth elected the first African American to the city council with

a little help from local businessmen. A local group of Fort Worth businessmen formed in

the late 1960s and 1970s to promote racial unity within the city. Though the assembly

never became an official organization, they called themselves the Good Government

League, composed of prominent white and black businessmen. Dr. Edward W. Guinn’s

18
“Texas to Escape Voting Shakeup: White, Negro Leaders See Little Change from New Law,”
Dallas Morning News, 22 August 1965.
 60

nomination and election to the Fort Worth City Council can be credited to the Good

Government League’s aid.19 Guinn, an African American physician, proved to be a great

selection as he overcame initial prejudices and proved himself as an asset to the council.

In a newspaper article, two anonymous councilmen mentioned their hesitations with the

initial electoral decision. Their main concern lay in the idea that Guinn might become an

“agitator or concentrate on getting everything he could for Negroes without regard for the

rest of the city.” Guinn did not see himself representing just the African American

community. In the same article, Guinn states that he “was elected by all the people of

Fort Worth—not just its Negroes—and I have an obligation to do what is best for all the

people. What is good for one is good for the other. If the city prospers and grows, there

are more job opportunities for everyone.”20

A champion for the city’s residents, Guinn sought out the best for everyone, but

never created a stir within the city’s government. Guinn’s successor, Leonard Briscoe,

wanted to bring racial unity to the city and to combat growing racial violence. In 1971,

Briscoe wanted to create better relations between the Fort Worth police force and

minorities in the city by opening lines of communication to gain trust and support

between the various groups. Briscoe suggested the creation of a biracial committee to

hear complaints and review cases of mistreatment and violence against minorities from

the Fort Worth police. Briscoe did not discuss his idea with Police Chief T. S. Walls, but

Walls stated that he agreed with anything that would help the city. The rest of the police

19
Richard F. Selcer, Fort Worth: A Texas Original! (Austin, TX: Texas State Historical
Association, 2004), 43.
20
Carl Freund, “Dr. Guinn Works for All Citizens,” Dallas Morning News, 14 October 1967.
Guinn spoke figuratively about being elected by all of Fort Worth in the article. In Fort Worth’s
nonpartisan City Council elections, residents vote for a representative in their district, not the entire
council.
 61

force, however, were hesitant and skeptical about the committee. They thought the board

might be biased and would ultimately accuse various police officers of misconduct and

create strife within the community.21 The proposed committee was not approved and

proved to be one of many ways in which Briscoe sought to improve race relations and

support minorities in the city. Briscoe’s most successful plan helped African Americans

and Latinos to gain employment in the city’s police and fire departments and to further

integrate jobs within the city government.22

Another notable African American political leader who created a stir within the

city’s government came in 1977 with Reby Cary, the only African American on the Fort

Worth Board of Education at the time. At the beginning of 1977, the school board voted

for a $70 million bond to improve Fort Worth schools. Cary was the only member who

voted against the issue and claimed he would create opposition to the bill. Cary claimed

that the board’s denial of $3 million to finance a new school in Stop Six, a predominantly

African American neighborhood, promoted segregated schools. The board already

planned to improve all-black schools, but did not include intentions to build a new one.

Cary believed that if the city built a new building rather than make improvements to an

established structure, white students would attend the school and the area would become

integrated. This stance angered other school board members because they saw Cary’s

actions as unprofessional and promoted racial tensions.23 Fort Worth city officials were

not ready for the opinions African American elected officials brought to the table during

21
Carl Freund, “Councilman Eyes Upgrading of Minority Image of Police,” Dallas Morning News,
7 November 1971.
22
Carl Freund, “Black Councilman’s Critics Divided,” Dallas Morning News, 21 September 1972.
23
“Politics Charge Leveled: Cary Angers Fellow Members on School Board,” Dallas Morning
News, 6 February 1977.
 62

the 1970s, but it was time for a change and the city’s black community was ready. All

the African American community needed was the chance to voice its desires, and during

the 1960s and 1970s, the Republican and Democrat Parties opened the door.

As the civil rights movement spread across the United States, the two main

political parties began to revive tactics first seen in the city during the nineteenth century.

Politicians wanted to gain the support and votes of African American residents in local

elections, so they began to adopt African American concerns as their own. In a mayoral

election campaign in 1969 between incumbent Mayor DeWitt McKinley and future

Mayor R. M. Stovall, Stovall sought to gain African American votes by reporting a

meeting between his opponent and George Wallace. Whether or not that was the main

reason for Stovall’s victory over McKinley, it proves that the Democratic mayoral

delegate used African Americans’ negative feelings about Wallace to gain their votes in

the election.24

During the 1960s, the Democratic Party included a new, bold tactic to ensure they

would receive African American votes. The party included at least one African

American delegate on the ballot to draw votes against the Republican Party. In

November 1969, a newspaper article focused on the delegates nominated for open seats

in the Tarrant County legislature. While the article’s author wrote that conservatives

dominated the delegation, he added that the “liberals are expected to field a slate which

will include at least one Negro.”25 Such a statement generally guaranteed that the

African American vote could be swayed toward an entire party if there was a member of

their race on the ballot. The Republican Party followed suit in 1972 when it nominated

24
Carl Freund, “Wallace Issue Seen for Fort Worth Race,” Dallas Morning News, 1 March 1969.
25
“Hopefuls Line Up Support,” Dallas Morning News, 6 November 1969.
 63

four African American legislative candidates. The party claimed it wanted to change its

image from the “country club set” to a more open and broader base. A change in image

may have been one of the party’s agendas by adding black delegates to the party’s ticket,

but more than that, the party wanted to gain more votes over the Democratic Party in the

election. While the two parties employed these tactics to gain votes for their own

political agendas, Fort Worth African Americans took advantage of the open invitation to

elect delegates who challenged the current government and demand change.26

The black community in Fort Worth experienced a host of obstacles and

tribulations from the beginning of black male suffrage to the creation of the biracial

committee in 1956. Politics in the 1960s and 1970s during the national civil rights

movement saw a change. To accommodate the changing attitude of racial unity and

integration, Fort Worth politics broke the color line along with other institutions in the

city such as schools, businesses, and public venues. The introduction of African

American officers in city government came primarily through attempts to quell racial

tension by including black delegates to the ballots. Both the Democratic and Republican

Parties wanted to gain the growing African American vote, but Fort Worth blacks used

this strategy to their advantage. Rather than allow the dominant political parties to

exploit their vote, African Americans voiced their opinions and broke through the

political color barrier. Their struggle was an amazing journey that required the

determination of black men and women to stand up for themselves, their opinions, and

their right to vote.

26
Carl Freund, “GOP Enlists Black Vote: 4 Negro Legislative Nominees Chosen to Change
Image,” Dallas Morning News, 12 October 1972.
 CHAPTER FIVE

Social and Cultural Institutions: The Building Blocks of the African American
Community

Churches: The Foundation

As one of the first African American institutions created by free black

communities during the early years of American history, churches stood at the forefront

of African American culture. Even before emancipation, slaves attended church with

their masters, held services in their homes on large plantations, or met in common areas.

After emancipation, through these religiously based organizations blacks gathered

together to socialize, encourage each other, and build other institutions that benefited the

community. As authors C. Eric Lincoln and Lawrence H. Mamiya state, “the Black

Church has no challenger as the cultural womb of the black community. Not only did it

give birth to new institutions such as schools, banks, insurance companies, and low

income housing, it also provided an academy and an arena for political activities, and it

nurtured young talent for musical, dramatic, and artistic development.”1 Such institutions

included the two other main sources of education and comradeship: schools and fraternal

organizations. In 1865, Congress authorized the Freedmen’s Bureau to provide schools

for children of freedmen. The Bureau worked with African American churches to build

structures that served as schools during the week and places to worship on Sundays.2

1
C. Eric Lincoln and Lawrence H. Mamiya, The Black Church in the African American
Experience (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1990), 8.
2
W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk (New York: The Library of America, 1986), 29.

64
 65

During the 1880s, the African Methodist Church in Fort Worth offered a private school to

educate local African American children in exchange for ten cents a day for tuition.3

Churches had a large influence on black businesses as well. African American

contractors built many black churches surrounding the Ninth Street business district and

nearby black residential neighborhoods, while the Fraternal Bank and Trust Company

financed the projects. An example of such a church was Mount Gilead Baptist Church.

In an interview with Lenora Rolla, a prominent African American in Fort Worth, Rolla

said that the church “stands as a monument to what the black community was like. It

formed the backbone of the community because that was the only place we could speak

free.”4 In fact, Mount Gilead Baptist Church stands as the third oldest African American

church in Fort Worth.5

Organized in 1875 and first built on the corner of 15th and Crump Street, the

church was known by the congregation as simply the Old Baptist Church. Soon after, the

minister changed the name to Mount Gilead Baptist Church. In 1883, the church

relocated to 13th and Jones Streets, and the congregation split into two different factions.6

Those who stayed at the first location renamed themselves Mount Pisgah Baptist Church.

The Reverend T. W. Wilburn served as Mount Pisgah’s pastor until 1887, when an

evangelical revivalist speaker came to Fort Worth to preach at Mount Gilead. J. L.

3
Oliver Knight, Fort Worth: Outpost on the Trinity (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press,
1953), 162.
4
Ben H. Standifer, Jr., “The Black Business District: 1900-1940,” (class paper, Texas Christian
University, 1998). Standifer interview with Lenora Rolla, September 1998.
5
The first African American church in Fort Worth was the Morning Chapel congregation of the
Colored Methodist Episcopal Church, organized in 1868. Richard F. Selcer, Fort Worth: A Texas Original!
(Austin, TX: Texas State Historical Association, 2004), 41. The second oldest congregation is Allen
Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church established in 1870.
6
The Mount Gilead Baptist Church congregation moved for the third and last time in 1912 to its
present location at 600 Grove Street.
 66

Griffin’s ability to draw large crowds and recruit church members led the Mount Pisgah

members to ask him to be their pastor. Griffin accepted the invitation but only remained

for one year, when the Reverend P. W. Upshaw took over until 1891. During his four-

year term, Upshaw expanded the building by enlarging the church sanctuary and created

a seventy-two foot bell tower, complete with bell. During the next minister’s seventeen-

year term, the church saw an increase in membership and strong leaders. Sister Mattie

McConnell and a group of other women members banded together to help the church

raise money to build a parsonage for the new minister, create a choir stand, carpet the

pulpit, and purchase a tread organ. McConnell also served as the church’s music minister

for church services and Sunday school activities. This trend of strong leaders continued

when the Reverend S. R. Prince, Mount Pisgah’s longest acting pastor, arrived. Prince

was the superintendent of missions for the Southern Baptist Convention, Unincorporated.

As such, Prince encouraged his congregation to serve each other and their community.

The church’s staff itself included a trained group of ministers, teachers, missionaries,

deacons, deaconesses, trustees, treasurers, and helpers. In the 1930s, Prince oversaw the

construction of a three-story, forty-room Educational Building that housed the enormous

church staff. After Prince’s death in 1953, the Reverend H. R. Bradley helped the

congregation survive a massive blow. In 1957, Interstate Highway 35 ran directly

through the property, forcing the congregation to move. The church purchased a

previously white-owned church, the Old Evans Avenue Baptist Church, and even before

moving to the new location, factions formed once more. Over two hundred members

decided to split from the Mount Pisgah Baptist Church congregation and formed the

Prince Memorial Baptist Church in honor of their previous long-time pastor. Regardless
 67

of the split, the remaining older African American church remained strong and unified.

In 1963, the Reverend Nehemiah Davis became pastor of the church. As a firm believer

in Christian education, Davis created training programs for church leaders, officers, and

Sunday school teachers. He challenged his adult congregation members to take more

active roles in the church, brought a youth fellowship together, and gave both children’s

and youth choirs roles during worship services. Davis continues leading the congregation

at Mount Pisgah Baptist Church and seeks to enrich and develop his members’ lives

through his dynamic sermons.7

As seen through the various ministers who served at Mount Pisgah Baptist

Church, ministers of African American churches became the first leaders of black

communities, building religious foundations, delivering morally uplifting sermons, and

bringing encouragement to their congregations. During the 1960s especially, at the

height of civil rights activities, black ministers spoke of African Americans as upright

citizens and gave confidence to church members to stand tall as African Americans and

to be proud of who they were as God’s children and creation. In a study of black

churches in the 1960s, Hart M. Nelsen and Anne Kusener Nelsen challenged the

commonly held belief that African American churches remained docile during the civil

rights era. In contrast to commonly known militants during the 1960s, such as the Black

Panthers (originally called the Black Panther Party for Self Defense) and leaders like

Malcolm X, church members remained devout and spoke of gaining equality through

peaceful action. Church focus tended to remain on the heavenly treasures gained through

Christian efforts on earth. Their center of attention, therefore, did not include temporal

7
Clyde McQueen, Black Churches in Texas: A Guide to Historic Congregations (College Station,
TX: Texas A&M University Press, 2000), 185-86.
 68

affairs of the present, and therefore congregations appeared closed off from current

events. This commonly held belief, however, is wrong. While a minister’s sermons

focused on other worldly values and concepts, such as heaven, they did discuss

contemporary issues and were involved in community activities. From Gallup Poll

research conducted during the mid to late 1960s, the Nelsens concluded that “blacks were

more likely than whites to embrace a more vigorous role for the church as an agency

claiming their allegiance and as an institution making pronouncements and taking a

protest stance.”8 The author of this thesis did not find such protest activity among Fort

Worth churches, but Fort Worth African American churches remained a strong

foundation for the city’s black communities.

In a recent study of historic African American churches in Texas, Clyde

McQueen found six different church buildings in Tarrant County and their congregations

still thriving in the city. McQueen distinguished these churches as historic based upon

their establishment during the nineteenth century. Mount Gilead Baptist Church and

Mount Pisgah Baptist Church, discussed earlier, are included in the study. Other

churches include the second oldest and largest Fort Worth African Methodist Episcopal

Church, Allen Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church. Founded in 1870 by

Reverend Moody, a pioneer pastor circuit rider, and five other area settlers, the

congregation met in each other’s homes until they purchased land in 1878 where they

built the current structure.9 A year later, in 1879, the church adopted the name Allen to

8
Hart M. Nelsen and Anne Kusener Nelsen, Black Churches in the Sixties (Lexington, KY:
University Press of Kentucky, 1975), 99.
9
McQueen, Black Churches, 184.
 69

honor Richard Allen, a slave who became first bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal

denomination.

The Saint Andrews United Methodist Church formed in 1888, and on 25

December 1894 the Reverend Frank Tribune and five other people organized the Mount

Zion Missionary Baptist Church. The Saint John Missionary Baptist Church in Mosier

Valley, an African American community outside of Fort Worth, organized in 1874. That

year a small group of former slaves congregated at the home of Frank Young and called

the new church Oak Grove Baptist Church. In the late nineteenth century, under the

pastorate of the Reverend Jim Carroll, the church changed its name to Saint John.10

In an analysis of historic African American churches still standing in Dallas

County and those in Tarrant County, McQueen showed that Tarrant County contains

more of a religious base than does Dallas County. (Table 7) This conclusion is solely

based upon the numbers found by McQueen as proof that twice the number of churches

built in the nineteenth century still stand and the congregations are still extant in Fort

Worth and Tarrant County than in Dallas County.

Table 7. Historic African American Churches by Denomination

in Dallas and Tarrant County

Baptist Methodist
Baptist Missionary AME CME ME UM Total
Dallas 1 1 -- -- -- 1 3
Fort Worth 2 2 1 -- -- 1 6
Source: Clyde McQueen, Black Churches in Texas: A Guide to Historic Congregations
(College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 2000), 172.

10
McQueen, Black Churches, 188.
 70

Education: Rising Above the Status Quo

Fort Worth blacks could not escape the disfranchisement that weighed upon all

black Texans at the beginning of the twentieth century; however, they did not stop

fighting for their right to vote or for another intrinsic right—education. A general

opinion held by white Texans regarding the growing violence between blacks and whites

was discussed in an editorial in a Texas newspaper, the Temple. The author argued that

educating African Americans did not cultivate them. “The solution does not rest in

education of the negroes. Their education is necessarily of a superficial kind and tends to

augment their insolence rather than to render them submissive to a position that they are

fitted for by their past lives.”11

Many white citizens would not concede that African Americans wanted to learn

how to read, write, and gain knowledge about their world. Blacks in Fort Worth,

however, fought for their right to attend school and take whatever little freedoms whites

would give them in order to better themselves and their families. They survived despite

a general view held by whites that they did not appreciate school. This mindset carried

into the twentieth century up to the 1960s when school systems grudgingly integrated.

As a child in early Fort Worth, Lou Skelton attended school sporadically and

relied mostly on her mother to show her the world and to educate her. This practice was

common for black children because after Reconstruction the city did not have any public

schools available for either black or white children, and African American families could

not afford private tutors. The first public school in Fort Worth opened in 1882 for white

children only after insufficient funds and the town’s population quashed two previous

11
“The State Press: What the Papers Throughout Texas are Talking About,” Dallas Morning News,
22 September 1889, 6.
 71

attempts. Although not mentioned by name in any records, directories from the 1880s

point to the existence of private schools available to colored children. These private

schools, as indicated by the adjective, were not funded by the city. The black community

had to create its own schools and use local churches as classrooms.12

On 1 August 1881, Professor E. T. Albert called a mass meeting of Fort Worth’s

black citizens to discuss and begin to raise funds to build an African American

schoolhouse. Albert already had offered the idea to the city’s white bankers who

supported the plan and gave funds to start building the structure. In order to appease the

white citizens and to help raise the money, Albert, who was African American, suggested

building the schoolhouse where a large number of African Americans lived, rather than

in the central part of the city where all black children in the county could have easy

access. Despite this setback, the schoolhouse was built.13

The 1888-89 Fort Worth city directory proudly presented a short history of city

schools. This included the statistics that the number of black teachers for the colored

schools increased from four in 1882 to six by 1884.14 By 1886, the first city-funded

public school opened for African Americans, the Ninth Street Colored School. In 1890,

this school remained the only public school for blacks out of eleven public schools in the

city. In Fort Worth by 1891, there were 3,478 white students taught by 133 white

teachers—55 men and 78 women. In the same year, 14 African American teachers—6

men and 8 women—taught 709 black students. The student/teacher ratio was not the

12
Du Bois, Souls, 29.
13
“Mass Meeting: Held by the Colored Citizens in Regard to Schools,” Fort Worth Daily
Democrat, 3 August 1881.
14
Morrison and Fourmy’s General Directory of the City of Fort Worth: 1888-89 (Fort Worth, TX:
Morrison and Fourmy, 1888), 46-47.
 72

only thing that remained unfair for African Americans in their quest for education. The

facilities for the black schoolhouse lacked the same quality as the white schools in the

area, and educational materials were often used repeatedly through the years while white

public schools were funded for updated materials and new books. These factors,

however, did not keep Fort Worth blacks from pursuing an education, applying

themselves to achieve better lives in the city, and confronting great racial hurdles in the

new century.15

A newspaper article about a black Baptist meeting held on 15 September 1904,

epitomized the typical racial attitudes within the city and state at the turn of the century.

The author first introduced the Baptist group with what appeared to be a compliment, but

which really was a double-edged sword by saying, “The delegates are composed of

negroes of intelligence far above the average and the businesslike way in which the

proceedings were started this morning argues well in their favor.”16 Although the article

writer thought the blacks present at the meeting were of high intelligence, the level of

excellence the author described was not very high compared to white intelligence. In a

speech presented at the meeting, Professor E. L. Blackshear, president of the African

American school Prairie View State College, stated that black progress in Texas was the

result of white help and support. Blackshear’s introduction of Texas Governor S. W. T.

Lanham, the main speaker at the meeting, was enthusiastic about white aid and charity.

What Blackshear failed to touch upon was African Americans progress because of their

intelligence, hard work, and ambition. Blackshear’s speech seemed to echo Booker T.

15
Historical Census Browser, retrieved from the University of Virginia, Geospatial and Statistical
Data Center, http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/collections/stats/histcensus/index.html, Date Accessed: 9 May
2006.
16
“Negro Baptists Meet,” Dallas Morning News, 15 September 1904, 3.
 73

Washington’s famous speech at the 1895 Atlanta Cotton States Exposition. Washington

spoke about working with white friends and colleagues to build up the black race in an

effort to achieve equality. While both Blackshear and Washington may not have

expounded upon African Americans attributes that would prove their ability to succeed,

Blackshear followed Washington’s example by encouraging blacks to work in concert

with whites and attend black trade colleges. What appeared to be excessive exuberance

about white aid was in fact a belief that carried over from the economic failure and chaos

of Reconstruction. If blacks learned trades at schools such as Tuskegee in Alabama or

Prairie View in Texas, which were funded by white support, the economy would remain

stable and allow for eventual progressive action, including racial equality.17

Fort Worth blacks, though, did not allow apparent racial tensions to prevent them

from gaining an education. In 1906 the main black school moved to a new location and

was renamed the Negro High School. As Fort Worth grew, so did the number of schools,

including African American elementary schools. By 1911 there were six elementary

schools located in the black residential sections of town (primarily North, South, and

West Fort Worth), nearby suburbs of Rosen Heights and Washington Heights, and

outlying counties where two African American county district schools operated in Prairie

Chapel and Riverside.18 Despite this augmentation of available African American

educational facilities, one “colored” high school catered to all African American students

in Tarrant County and only went through the eleventh grade.19 The 1910 census shows,

17
Booker T. Washington, “The Atlanta Exposition Address,” September 18, 1895, Up From
Slavery: An Autobiography (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1901), 98-101.
18
Morrison and Fourmy Directory Co.: Directory of the City of Fort Worth, 1909-1910, 43-44.
19
Morrison and Fourmy Directory Co.: Directory of the City of Fort Worth, 1911-1912, 4.
 74

however, that the Fort Worth public schools only accommodated 10 percent of the black

school-age population between six and fourteen years old. By 1920, 1,336 African

American residents out of 18,730 in the city were illiterate. This translates into 7.13

percent of the black population not being able to read or write. Comparatively, only .54

percent of the city’s native white residents, those born in the United States, were

considered illiterate.20

In 1921, the Fort Worth high school for blacks was renamed I. M. Terrell High

School, in honor of the first principal of the Ninth Street Colored School.21 A 1924

overview of the city’s growth identified nine high schools serving more than 27,000

students spread out through thirty-eight wards. In addition to these nine public schools,

there were twelve private schools and many business colleges, but only a few of these

schools were open to Fort Worth’s black students.22

These schools were often run down and ill funded compared to white schools in

the county. Despite the shortage of schools, teachers, and proper funding, black students

in Fort Worth and surrounding Tarrant County could not necessarily complain of an

inadequate education. The teachers did not pander to the belief that poverty or

segregation guaranteed illiteracy or complacency with the status quo. They taught their

students as well as they could, encouraged them to continue their education at black

colleges in and around Texas, and pushed them to strive for the best. As a result, the

percentage of illiterate black residents in Tarrant County decreased from 7.13 percent in

20
Historical Census Browser.
21
Carol Roark, Fort Worth & Tarrant County: An Historical Guide (Fort Worth, TX: Texas
Christian University Press, 2003), 92.
22
Louis J. Wortham, A History of Texas from Wilderness to Commonwealth (Fort Worth, Texas:
Wortham-Molyneaux Company, 1924), 235-38.
 75

1920 to 6.45 percent ten years later.23 Unfortunately, many black colleges within the

United States focused on trade and technical training that consisted mainly of high

school-level courses. Included in this trend was the Fort Worth Industrial and

Mechanical College, which operated from 1909 until 1929.24 Nevertheless, there were

schools in Texas that promoted post-secondary studies, such as Paul Quinn College.

Paul Quinn College was founded in Austin in 1872 by itinerant preachers of the African

American Methodist Episcopal Church. The school later moved to Waco and then to

Dallas. Prairie View A&M University began in 1876, the result of legislation stipulating

the establishment of a mechanical and agricultural school for African Americans.25

Whether the two higher level schools opened due to religious impulses or

governmental decree, statistics prove that African American Texans endeavored to do

their best. In 1914 there were 129 students enrolled in college-level black colleges in

Texas. By 1921, the number rose to 600 students, showing that while there were not

higher educational opportunities in Fort Worth, the state’s African American youth

wanted to gain more knowledge.26

On 29 December 1909, the Negro State Teachers’ Association met in Fort Worth

to discuss the success and growth of the city’s black public schools. Professor H. T.

Davis brought attention to the “work of the negro teachers, showing their position in the

23
Garry Hamilton Radford, “Oral Memoirs of Garry Hamilton Radford: July 20, 1979-September
8, 1979,” The Texas Collection, Baylor University, Waco, Texas; and Tim Madigan, “Fort Worth Star-
Telegram: Separate but Superior,” www.pbs.org/weta/twoschools/thechallenge/telegram/, Date Accessed:
18 February 2005.
24
Alwyn Barr, Black Texans: A History of African Americans in Texas, 1528-1995, 2d ed.
(Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1996), 160.
25
David Williams, “The History of Higher Education for Black Texans, 1872-1977” (Ph.D. diss.,
Baylor University, 1978), 75, 87.
26
Ibid.
 76

uplift of the negro race, and the importance of their being moral and intellectual lights in

the country.”27 This statement of pride within the African American community directly

combats a statement made in the nearby newspaper, the Milam County Vindicator, from

1889, in which a white reporter wrote that blacks were “not yet the white man’s equal in

moral and intellectual culture.”28

A contemporary of the author in the Milam County Vindicator spoke at the

association meeting. Leroy Smith, president of the Board of Education, addressed the

Fort Worth African American community: “You people should remember that you have

friends right here in the South. Much has been said about the $50,000 building which we

are erecting for your people. We feel that we are doing our duty, and it is because you

have a colored citizen, I. M. Terrell, who has proven himself worthy. . . . You can not

get the white people to do for your people by abusing them.”29 What Smith apparently

was saying was that citizens of Fort Worth, or at least members of the Board of

Education, were doing their duty because of one African American being worthy of such

an endeavor. Smith’s comments seemed to say that the blacks’ white friends did not

think the black citizens of Fort Worth deserved the same good education and proper

facilities that white citizens possessed.

Despite Smith’s comments at the convention, the Reverend Dr. J. W. McKinney,

the grand master of the black Masons and pastor at the C. M. E. Church, ended the

meeting by lifting the congregation’s spirits and pride once again, proclaiming, “As a

27
“Negro Teachers’ Meeting,” Dallas Morning News, 30 December 1909, 7.
28
“The State Press: What the Papers Throughout Texas are Talking About,” Dallas Morning News,
16 September 1889, 4.
29
“Negro Teachers’ Meeting.”
 77

people we must look to our own people. What the negro will be depends on what he does

for himself rather than on what others may do for him.”30 In other words, McKinney told

those gathered at the meeting not to expect help from others. The Fort Worth black

community, he believed, must persevere and succeed by its own strength and actions or

else the white citizens of the city would continue to identify them as inferior to whites.

In 1920, one hundred black and white citizens founded a statewide reform group

called the Texas Commission on Interracial Cooperation. African American and white

leaders from across the state composed the commission and met to rally for equality in

many areas of Texas life. Within five years of its conception, the organization became

the largest interracial group focused on progressivism in the South. In the 1930s the

group’s focus turned toward improving the status of African American education.31

During the December 1938 meeting, the Texas Commission of Interracial Cooperation

did not solely discuss general equal rights between the races in areas such as housing or

justice. The commission also sought better opportunities for African American education

in Texas, including a more extensive curriculum in public schools regarding health and

citizenship. At the time, there were no in-state opportunities for African Americans in

professional areas such as medicine and law. Edwin Elliott, Fort Worth’s regional

chairman of the Federal Labor Relations Board, discussed two ways to help blacks in

Texas—organizations, such as labor unions, and legislation sponsored by white men

“who believe in democracy.” Elliott elaborated upon his thoughts about the unfair

treatment blacks suffered in Texas and thus the educational barricades they faced.

30
Ibid.
31
Ruthe Wingarten, Black Texas Women: 150 Years of Trial and Triumph, (Austin: University of
Texas Press, 1995), 216.
 78

In the South especially justice is often denied him. He is kept in his place as a sawer
[sic] of wood and a drawer of water and the Negro does it cheerfully. A few by sheer
determination and character educate themselves. But I know Negro college graduates
who are porters and domestic servants, whereas 25,000 Negro scholastics in Texas are
not enrolled in schools for lack of teachers. We have only one state college in Texas
for this race to serve the 243,000 in the school system. Be it said to the credit of the
Texas Negro and his white friends that there are eleven private Negro colleges. But
there is not one that offers graduate work.

According to African American leaders present at the meeting, if the Texas State

Legislature would provide funds to send eligible black students to out-of-state

institutions, African Americans would become more civilized and improved socially and

medically.32

Black families were not happy when their children had to attend the nearest all-

black elementary schools. African American parents had to pay bus fare for their

children to travel to either the nearest black elementary school or the only black high

school, I. M. Terrell High School, while white schools were much closer to whites. Their

choices became limited to either facing added expenses to send their children to school,

or to taking them out of school due to the financial costs accrued by such enforcements.

Whenever a large African American population moved into a previously all-white

community, a school conflict usually arose as white student attendance dropped in nearby

all-white schools. Rather than integrate, the school system would simply turn the school

into an all-black school and send the white children to a white school. The same

adjustment did not occur if African Americans complained about the distance their

children needed to travel in order to attend an all-black school. There appear to be no

documented cases in which African American families either tried to enroll their children

into white schools or filed lawsuits against the Fort Worth school system for unfair

32
“Texas Urged to Give Negro More Rights.”
 79

treatment before the 1950s. When the 1954 Brown v. Board ruling proclaimed that

segregated schools were unconstitutional, Fort Worth ignored the Supreme Court

decision.

Two years later, in 1956, the Fort Worth Board of Education voted against

integrating black and white students. The board claimed its decision was based upon

three factors that school desegregation would undermine. The board’s first two claims

were that the city had seen more of a rapid increase in the scholastic population in recent

years than ever before, leading to critical shortages in school facilities. The third was a

financial reason, although not what one might anticipate regarding a school desegregation

issue. The city of Fort Worth, the board stated, recently had committed to a $20 million

building project, which was already underway.33 Logistically the city could integrate its

schools relatively smoothly and with the school buildings already in place. All that was

required was to allow students to attend the schools nearest their residences, and, ideally

each school would have roughly the same number of pupils attending. Any additional

buildings and funding required would be the result of the influx of student population the

board cited. The main financial burden of an integration plan, however, would go toward

repairing and updating established African American schools to be adequate for white

students’ health and educational needs. If the Board of Education chose to, the cited $20

million project could have been redirected and used toward other expenditures. The

reasons given by the committee, however, were not strong enough for two Fort Worth

African American families who took legal action to make educational equality a reality.

33
“Integration Ruled Out for Present: Board of Education Cites Many Problems Facing City
Schools,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 9 August 1956.
 80

In the fall of 1956 Herbert C. Teal and Air Force Sergeant Weirleis Flax Sr. tried

to register their children into two separate Fort Worth white elementary schools—Peter

Smith and Burton Hill.34 When the schools refused to admit the children, Sergeant Flax

took legal action against the Fort Worth public school system and received help from the

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Originally, the

Fort Worth school system wanted the case dismissed or at least taken to the Texas

Supreme Court, hoping the state’s high court would conclude that the Brown decision

might lead to “confusion, frustration, and chaos” within the city.35 Fort Worth

Independent School District’s pleas for postponement, however, went unheard. United

States District Judge Leo Brewster heard the case in 1961 with Clifford Davis, a NAACP

lawyer, as the prosecuting attorney. As the only practicing African American lawyer in

Forth Worth in the mid 1950s, Davis not only represented the NAACP, but also African

Americans throughout the city.36 Judge Brewster found the Fort Worth Independent

School District in violation of the 1954 Supreme Court decision and ordered Fort Worth

to create an integration plan for its public schools. The all-white school board delayed

taking action until 1963, when Judge Brewster once again ordered them to create a plan

of action, this time by threatening to cut federal funds if action did not take place.37

34
“Five Negroes Try to Enroll at Fort Worth,” Dallas Morning News, 5 September 1956, 4.
35
Don Williams, “Schools Seek Dismissal of Integration Suit Here: Need for State High Court
Ruling is Cited,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 19 November 1959.
36
Clifford Davis belonged to the J. L. Turner Legal Association in Dallas, Texas during the mid
1950s because he was the only practicing lawyer in the city of Fort Worth at the time. When there were
enough practicing African American lawyers in Fort Worth, the city established its own African American
bar association. J. L. Turner Legal Association, Dallas, Texas, “The History of the J. L. Turner Legal
Association,” http://www.jltla.org/about_history.html, Date Accessed: 6 December 2006.
37
Don McDowell, “US Court Says Schools Here Must Integrate, September Likely Date: No
Appeal by City Seen,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 7 February 1963.
 81

The Fort Worth public school board devised a stair-step plan starting in the 1963-

64 school year, integrating first graders within their home districts, and desegregating

adult educational programs. The local NAACP chapter constantly asked the school board

for complete integration but the board always turned them down. Initially the school

board planned to integrate one grade level per year, leading to complete desegregation by

1974. This plan fell through when the courts once again ordered the schools to

desegregate sooner than later. The arrangement changed to allow at least two grade

levels to integrate per year. In 1964, Fort Worth’s kindergarten through second grades

and the Technical High School desegregated. During the first year of integration, the

school board permitted students in the lower grade levels of kindergarten through the

second grade to attend the elementary schools in the districts where they lived. The

outcome, however, showed that most students remained in segregated schools due to

either segregated housing or predominantly white or black neighborhoods. The following

year, third through sixth grade integrated, followed by the junior high schools in 1966,

which included grade levels seven through nine. At the start of the 1967-68 school year,

the rest of the city’s high schools desegregated. The Fort Worth newspapers celebrated

the fact that no violence of any kind occurred during the integration process, in contrast

to Dallas or Little Rock, Arkansas.38

Just because mob riots or brutality did not occur does not mean white Fort Worth

citizens willingly allowed their children to attend integrated schools. Many white

families boycotted the integrated public schools and lowered school attendance by

refusing to allow their children to attend school, moving to other school districts, or

38
“Integration Day Goes Routinely,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 5 September 1963; Pat Reed,
“Fort Worth Elementary Schools Integrate: No Incidents,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 8 September 1965.
 82

enrolling them in parochial schools. Consequently, the federal courts did not believe that

the Fort Worth schools were integrated enough, so in 1971 mandatory busing came into

effect to complete the integration process by breaking up predominately black schools

and placing those students in formerly all-white facilities. While school districts

provided free transportation to students, members of the African American community

felt the pains of integration when their old, empty school buildings closed, and they

believed that they still did not benefit from integration.39

White students and parents also believed this new school integration plan called

them to sacrifice too much. Some parents talked about selling their homes and moving to

Arlington or other suburbs where the court decision was not in effect, while other parents

talked about withdrawing their children from public school and enrolling them in private

institutions. Most complaints from white families took the form of feeling the need to

move rather than force their children to ride a bus to a different school district, but the

underlying cause was more than simply location. Many white parents did not want their

children going to school with black students. Clifford Davis, now the local spokesman

for the NAACP regarding the school integration plan, told the local media that the

NAACP would not ask federal courts to include suburban school districts in the decision

unless white flight to outlying communities left “an insufficient number of whites to

integrate thoroughly schools within Fort Worth.”40 Clifford and the NAACP had had

39
“Integration: From Stair-Step Plan of 1963 to Busing, 1971,” The Fort Worth Press, 3 October
1971; and Yamil Berard, “Looking Back Moving Forward . . . 50 years after Brown vs. the Board of
Education,” www.star-telegram.com/mld/interactivemedia/brown/brownved.html#story; Date Accessed: 18
April 2005.
40
“Fort Worth Integration May Bring ‘White Flight’,” Dallas Morning News, 16 November 1972.
 83

enough of educational inequality and did not want to let this new opportunity to improve

Fort Worth African American education vanish.

Social Organizations: African American Unity and Leadership Within the City

Although Fort Worth did not experience volatile civil rights action, most of the

accomplishments would not have occurred if African Americans had not formed

organizations available to help. Not all of the associations provided legal assistance like

that provided by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

(NAACP) to obtain changes in legislation, but they offered blacks opportunities during

times when their social options within Fort Worth were few.

During the late nineteenth century, African American fraternal organizations

abounded in Fort Worth. An 1890 city directory listed two all-male African American

fraternal and relief societies: Rescue Lodge No. 20, A. F. and A. M. organized in 1886,

and the Masonic Rescue Chapter No. 5, Order of the Eastern Star, organized in 1889.

Subsequent pages list other organizations noted under the subheading “Miscellaneous and

Relief.” These three other gender-based societies included the Ladies Lover Court No. 8,

a women’s organization founded in 1887, the Seven Stars of Consolidation Lodge No.

19, organized in 1884, and the Order of Twelve Knights of Tabor, 777 and 333, No. 19.41

While the male fraternal organizations such as the Masons and the Odd Fellows

generally are the first names that come to mind as local social organizations many female

societies worked within the community as well. Female clubs and organizations in Texas

and Fort Worth acted as networks for social gatherings, volunteering in the community,

41
D.S. Clark’s City Directory of the Inhabitants, Manufacturing Establishments, Institutions,
Business Firms, etc. in the City of Fort Worth, Texas (Fort Worth, TX: TX Printing and Lithography Co.,
1890), 32, 35.
 84

and leadership bases to rally for common issues regarding health, family, education, and

morality. The first national African American organization, the National Association of

Colored Women (NACW) founded in 1896, incorporated other regional and state groups

already in existence. Between 1899 and 1901, the Phillis Wheatley Club of Fort Worth

joined the national organization. In 1905, a statewide group, called the Texas Federation

of Colored Women’s Clubs formed. The first state president of the new federation was

Mrs. M. E. Y. Moore, an Eastern Star leader from Fort Worth. Moore issued a call to

Texas African American women to “improve the home, moral, and social life in Texas

communities.” This cry for improvement also held elements of unity for all Texas black

women.42

Female organizations also used their influence and camaraderie to promote

change, safety, and unity. During the time of widespread lynching, African American

societies such as the NACW and local black sororities banded together to attempt to put a

stop to the violence against their race. The year 1922 saw the formation of an official

state anti-lynching group. The National Anti-Lynching Crusaders organized a Texas

branch and voted R. A. Ethel Ransom, a Fort Worth nurse and local leader, as state

director. The organization’s motto read “One Million Women United to Suppress

Lynching,” and to accomplish this task they planned to raise $1 million to lobby against

the violence.43

As white middle class residents created their own progressive organizations to

battle immorality in Fort Worth, African American middle class founded two reform

42
Winegarten, Black Texas Women, 190. Subsequent names for the Texas Federation of Colored
Women’s Clubs were the Texas Association of Colored Women’s Clubs and the Texas Association of
Women’s Clubs.
43
Ibid., 218.
 85

societies—the Afro-American Citizens’ Conference and the Colored Progressive Club.

While African Americans wanted more equality in the city during the late nineteenth

century, their other focus laid with the red light district located in their neighborhood.44

The NAACP was the most nationally prominent organization that stepped in to

help Texas African Americans. The first NAACP chapter established in Texas was in El

Paso in 1915, followed by four more branches in 1918. The Fort Worth branch was

active at various times before 1937, when the Texas State Conference of Branches

formed, giving the NAACP a strong, statewide foundation. During the 1960s, the

organization focused mainly on school integration and discrimination lawsuits. Its work

with the Flax case, a lawsuit against the Fort Worth public school board in 1961, led to

the city’s school desegregation. In subsequent years, the local NAACP branch asked for

complete integration, rather than the stair-step plan the school board adopted, and for

teacher integration. Because desegregation in Fort Worth came relatively peacefully,

African Americans did not have a great need for the NAACP’s legal services and neither

of the branch’s requests went to court.45 Rather, during the 1950s and 1960s they

required monetary help and social opportunities.

The organization that Fort Worth blacks turned to most often concerning

economic issues was the National Urban League (NUL). Established in 1910, the NUL

began as a bi-racial social service organization. During the 1950s when the NUL was

most active in Fort Worth, the organization sought to create a better understanding

44
Richard F. Selcer, Hell’s Half Acre: The Life and Legend of a Red Light District (Fort Worth,
TX: Texas Christian University Press, 1991), 221.
45
The Fort Worth NAACP branch is still active and operating, continuing to provide legal help to
those who have discrimination complaints. Max B. Baker, “Partnership Offers Free Legal Clinics,”
www.dfw.com/mld/startelegram/2004/04/14/news/local/8419878.htm, Date Accessed: 22 January 2005.
For more information about NAACP activity in Texas, see Michael Gillette, “The NAACP in Texas, 1937-
1957” (Ph.D. diss., University of Texas, 1984).
 86

between blacks and whites and to improve African American living and working

conditions. Rather than raising the money themselves, the organization sponsored

progressive action such as creating better housing in poor black communities.46 They

accomplished this with money from the United Fund program. The United Fund program

acted as a community chest, sponsoring other organizations such as “Sr.-Try-Hi-Y” for

teenagers and younger children, the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA)

with a specific section for African Americans, and a Child Care Center for black

mothers.47 According to the executive director of the National Urban League, Whitney

M. Young, Jr., pressure from the Ku Klux Klan forced the Fort Worth Urban League out

of commission in 1956.48 When told that the Klan had not had any discernable

movement in Fort Worth since the 1920s, Young then attributed the League’s demise to

the White Citizens Council.

At the beginning of 1969, fifty Fort Worth African American youths stepped up

to help reduce the amount of fear and violence occurring in their neighborhoods. On a

Thursday night, 20 March 1969, these students met with city officials to organize a unity

task force to combat problems arising between several black high schools, including

shootings and gang fights.49 Later, local organizations circulated publications that

attempted to bring awareness of African American history to the city’s black community.

The Black Citizens Concerned with the Bicentennial published Fort Worth: The Black

46
“Fort Worth Lags in Race Work, League Head Says,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 16 July 1951.
47
Blair Justice, “Agencies for Negro Boys and Girls Benefited by United Fund Program,” Fort
Worth Star-Telegram, 5 September 1956.
48
“Negro Leader Warns Texas Riots Possible,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 1 December 1966.
49
“Negro Students Organize Group to Ease Friction,” Dallas Morning News, 21 March 1969, 4.
 87

Perspective in 1976.50 This was not meant to be a piece of historical work, but rather,

was designed to inspire Fort Worth’s African American community to dig deeper into its

heritage and roots.

Other organizations also rose up to take on a new role in Fort Worth and African

American issues. These foundations did not work necessarily only for the black citizen.

Rather, they worked to fill a need for multi-racial dialogue and unity created when

desegregation and Jim Crow laws fell and a hopeful, integrated community began. Two

relatively recent organizations in Texas are the Fort Worth Coalition for Community

Change and the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF). The Coalition for Community

Change works together with three racial “neighborhoods” (white, African American, and

Hispanic) to bring about community change. The group’s main goals are to assess

progress, respond appropriately to changing issues, and provide leadership development

training and support within the community. The IAF focuses on inter-racial cooperation

by “tapping” into the community’s religious base to create a factor of trust between

people.51 The IAF institute founded in Fort Worth in 1982 is called the Allied

Communities of Tarrant [County] (ACT). This organization seeks to unite white, African

American, and Hispanic community leaders to create local organizations while allowing

room for racial autonomy within this coalition.52

These new organizations are not superfluous since African Americans in Fort

Worth, Texas, are now allowed to drink from the same water fountain as white citizens.

50
Black Citizens Concerned with the Bicentennial, Fort Worth: The Black Perspective (Fort
Worth, Texas, 1976).
51
“Past Projects,” www.mdcinc.org/past_projects.htm#Fort%2Worth, Date Accessed: 28 April
2005.
52
Mark R. Warren, “IAF in Texas: Creating a Multi-Racial Democratic Community: Case Study of
the Texas Industrial Areas Foundation,” www.tresser.com/iafin.htm, Date Accessed: 28 April 2005.
 88

People in Fort Worth, as well as the United States in general, can still hold prejudices

against one another, and discrimination still exists. These coalitions between the three

main racial groups in Texas fill the latest need in American society: to understand all

people and to try to build a bridge over the fissures our history has created.
 CHAPTER SIX

Race Relations: From Violence to Resolution

The early years of Fort Worth’s history were not devoid of instances of tension

between white residents and black slaves within the community. As in other slave states,

slaveholders and the surrounding citizens in Tarrant County feared slave riots and revolts

while the city was still Fort Town. There was violence between whites and African

Americans, but the violence was not exclusively between the different races. As was

evident in a specific instance in the 1850s, Fort Town’s white citizens felt threatened by

anyone, white or black, who interfered with their way of life.

Texas, along with other slaveholding states, experienced northern and southern

abolitionists who came into cities and towns arguing about the legality and morality of

slavery to the citizens. Most Fort Worth citizens did not own slaves so their overall

opinion nearing the Civil War was more like anti-abolitionist than pro-slavery.1 Fort

Worth witnessed such abolitionist arguments in the late 1850s, when most of the debates

occurred in white meeting places, and the abolitionists would simply pass through

afterward. Charles Ellis Mitchell, an early resident of Fort Worth, arrived in the city in

May 1856 as a child and remembered various abolitionist speakers coming to town who

riled up the citizens.2 One incident in particular remained vivid to Mitchell and another

1
Leonard Sanders, How Fort Worth Became the Texasmost City (Fort Worth, TX: Amon Carter
Museum of Western Art, 1973).
2
Mack Williams, “He Played in the Old Army Fort,” in In Old Fort Worth: The Story of a City and
its People as Published in the News-Tribune in 1976 and 1977 (Fort Worth, TX: Mack H. Williams and
Madeline C. Williams, 1977), 44-45.

89
 90

anonymous early citizen for many years afterward, especially because it created more of

an uproar than usual.

In the summer of 1860, two male abolitionists came to Fort Worth—the Reverend

Anthony Bewley, a Methodist minister, and William Crawford.3 Not only did the two

men stay longer than usual within the city, they also spoke directly to the slaves at a small

meeting place where the slaves were allowed to have church, telling them to rise against

their masters to gain freedom. Ned Purvis, a slave present for the abolitionist meetings,

felt loyal to his master and immediately told him what the two white men said at the

meeting. At the same time of their visit, mysterious fires broke out in the Fort Worth

business district and elsewhere in the state causing a heightened sense of danger and fear

among white citizens. After hearing the information from Purvis, a mob formed the next

day and immediately hanged Crawford on a pecan tree at the intersection of the

Jacksboro and White Settlement roads. Bewley escaped and made it up to Springfield,

Missouri, where the mob tracked him after he fled. Bewley was returned to Fort Worth

on charges of being involved in an arson plot and hanged by a mob on 13 September

1860, on the same tree where Crawford was hanged. Mitchell’s recollection of the events

seems to indicate that he believed, along with other Fort Worth citizens, in the

justification of the lynching of Bewley and Crawford. The actual account of the events in

Mitchell’s memoir runs for only a few sentences, and the last parting thoughts on the

topic described how someone threw Bewley and Crawford’s bones on top of a building’s

roof, forgotten and barely recalled correctly.4 Such remarks indicate that in the years

3
Joseph Bandor, Memoirs of Tarrant County Confederate Veterans and Others of Post-War
Period (Fort Worth, TX: Texas Christian University, 1960), 6.
4
Williams, “He Played in the Old Army Fort,” 45.
 91

before the Civil War, especially in this specific instance, those who believed in slavery

tolerated abolitionists within the city if they did not cause trouble, but did not trust them

or take enough interest to bury their bodies.

The treatment of white abolitionists by Fort Town’s white residents portrays a

desire to retain tradition and a sense of normalcy within the county. They did not want

the institution of slavery to disappear for two reasons. The first was that a majority of

white Texans believed in the inferiority of blacks, even though there were a few free

African Americans in the state. To many Texans, slavery made sense and should remain

a steadfast establishment. Second, white residents were not ready for the institution of

slavery to be abolished. The state’s economy was agricultural and ranch-based, which

required slave labor. To take forced labor away would lower annual harvests and

revenue and thereby hurt white Texan farmers, ranchers, and the other residents who

were dependant upon local food and cotton products.

Although the city of Fort Worth grew exponentially after the Civil War, it did not

escape the racial problems that plagued southern cities after the war and Reconstruction.

White attitudes toward African Americans created rifts within the community as blacks

tried to adjust to their new status as freedmen and to become citizens. Across Fort Worth

there loomed white anger and annoyance toward blacks. The Fort Worth Daily

Democrat, the city’s major newspaper, often published stories portraying African

Americans as lazy, idle, violent, and subversive. The articles usually described two

blacks of the same sex fighting each other behind a saloon and the police having to get

involved and hauling one or both to jail.5

5
“A Bad Nigger,” Fort Worth Daily Democrat, 13 January 1878 (at Birch Brothers Saloon on
Rusk Street); “Two Spirited Negro Wenches,” Fort Worth Daily Democrat, 27 December 1877 (by the
 92

Similar to other southern towns, Fort Worth experienced lynchings and hangings

in a crude form of so-called justice. Two incidents occurred in the early years of the

Texas city. Lou Skelton, an African American born in 1862 and previously owned by

Colonel Terry, remembered two hangings in Fort Worth. One occurred just after the

Civil War. The specific information about the event remains uncertain, but Skelton

recalled seeing a black man whose last name was Capps hanging from a tree by Cold

Springs Road and wearing a blue Union uniform. Without further information it is

difficult to determine if a trial preceded Capps’s hanging. Considering the outcome of

the war and the fact that he wore a Union uniform, however, leads to the conclusion that

local citizens angered by losing the war and seeing an African American in a traitorous

blue Union uniform, lynched Capps.6

Skelton, a former slave, recalled another hanging in 1874 during an interview

sixty years later.7 She called the victim Jim Braggs, but his actual first name was Sol.

Sol Braggs’s hanging for the murder of Matthew Green the year before took place on the

afternoon of 1 May 1874 on gallows built outside the city limits. Approximately four

thousand people attended the execution of the six-foot man and saw him ride up to the

scaffold in a wagon, sitting on his own coffin. At the gallows, he spoke to the crowd

assembled before him, advising young people to stay at home and work for a living, and

claiming his innocence. Braggs declared that his partner, Baz Moulden, killed Matthew

Alamo Saloon on the Square); “Africans at War,” Fort Worth Daily Democrat, 2 March 1878 (behind
Bohardt’s Saloon).
6
“In Old Fort Worth: Colonel Terry and the Slave Girl,” in Williams, Old Fort Worth, 12.
7
“Colonel Terry and the Slave Girl,” in Williams, Old Fort Worth, 12.
 93

Green, but the witnesses at his trial lied.8 If the witnesses had lied at the trial, did the

court even truly care whether Braggs was guilty or not? The justice system was not the

kindest toward blacks convicted of crimes against white citizens.

A prime example within Fort Worth that proves unjust treatment toward African

Americans was an incident that occurred when William Oliver, white, murdered George

Howard, black, in Hell’s Half Acre. The treatment of white men who killed black men

was not as harsh as that of black men who killed white men. A jury trial of his peers

charged Oliver with negligent homicide, claiming, “The defense was that the killing was

purely accidental, the defendant not knowing the pistol with which he killed Howard was

loaded.”9 The verdict delivered by the jury was guilty, but Oliver’s punishment for the

offense was to spend sixty days in the county jail. The accidental killing of a black man

in the Fort Worth court system in the late 1800s resulted in what seems like a mere slap

on the wrist compared to the very public hanging of Braggs just a decade earlier.10

Other violence went unnoticed on a daily basis. In a jovial newspaper article

written in 1878, a reporter described an “every day scene” of young boys hurling objects

at a young black boy in a busy market square in Fort Worth.

A crowd of young lads around with sacks and bags half full of cotton, pelting
away at a ten year old negro boy, who had presumed to come on the square and gather
cotton with them. “Take that, and that, and that! Ye liver color’d coon.”
The way those four or five young thoroughbreds imposed on that helpless negro
boy was a caution: it would be safe to add that he was completely “barred out” of the

8
B. B. Paddock, ed., “Execution of Sol Bragg: The Last Act in the Drama of Life of this
Remarkable Negro,” Fort Worth Democrat, 2 May 1874.
9
“Fort Worth’s Bad Water,” Dallas Morning News, 29 June 1887, 3.
10
Ten men were hanged legally in Fort Worth, Texas between 1874 and 1918. Of those ten, seven
of them were African Americans. Richard F. Selcer, Fort Worth: A Texas Original! (Austin, TX: Texas
State Historical Association, 2004), 42.
 94

limits of the square, and never again will his little darky fingers pick loose cotton out
of every farmer’s wagon. 11

No one paid attention to the violence inflicted upon the little boy. The author of the

article even described the event with a sense of great pride and accomplishment, as if the

white boys had done the marketplace a favor.

Young white boys were not the only ones threatening African Americans. The

Ku Klux Klan (KKK) had a presence in Texas in the years following the Civil War and

proved a very real menace to black Texans. The original Ku Klux Klan formed after the

Civil War in 1865 by Confederate veterans, was a paramilitary organization that opposed

the new amendments to the Constitution that freed slaves, protected their civil rights, and

allowed them to vote. The Klan used violent measures to promote their ideas of white

supremacy and to force federal troops and Republicans from the South during

Reconstruction. In 1868, the Klan formed in Texas appearing in small, loosely organized

groups in large Texas cities. Most Klan activity in Texas during the nineteenth century

occurred in Northeast Texas and extended down to Houston. The following year,

General Nathan Bedford Forrest, one of the Klan’s co-founders, officially disbanded the

national organization because he believed the group had lost sight of the original purpose

he believed in—to protect southern women and white supremacy—and had become too

extreme in its tactics. Despite the official end of the Klan, separate pocket groups within

Texas popped up occasionally to march through little towns or terrorize anyone who

either sympathized with the freedmen or stood in the group’s way.12

11
“An Every Day Scene: The Boys on the Square,” Fort Worth Daily Democrat, 6 December
1878.
12
Ku Klux Klan history research came from: “Ku Klux Klan,” http://en.wikipedia.org/
 95

Andy Nelson, an ex-slave, remembered how ten to twelve years after the Civil

War, the KKK was active in the area around Fort Worth and often threatened African

Americans who were involved in “devilment.”13 In July 1878, Nelson had a run-in with a

KKK group led by Sam Bass. Aside from Nelson being scared and verbally questioned

about his intentions on the road, the group left Nelson alone.14 Other black Texans were

not as fortunate. William Hamilton, an ex-slave from Tarrant County, remembered how

freed blacks had problems with the KKK, including physical violence. Hamilton

remembered at least three people whipped by the Klan: Faith Walden, Jeb Johnson, and

Dan Hester. Only one person stood up to the Klan according to Hamilton’s memory—

Jean Benson. When Klan members came to her house unexpectedly, Benson defied the

Klan long enough to throw embers in their faces and run away before they had a chance

to do anything to her.15

The crime of lynching continued into the early twentieth century in the form of

vigilante justice. In 1921, Fort Worth’s white citizens took a stand against David Bunn

when Bunn, an African American, was charged with raiding a group of whites staying at

a cabin by Lake Worth. A mob gathered in early October to take Bunn from jail and

wiki/Ku_Klux_Klan, Date Accessed: 18 February 2005; and Handbook of Texas Online, s.v. “Ku Klux
Klan,” www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/view/KK/vek2.html, Date Accessed: 18 February
2005. For more information on the KKK, see Charles C. Alexander, Crusade for Conformity: The Ku Klux
Klan in Texas, 1920-1930 (Houston, TX: Texas Gulf Coast Historical Association, 1962), and Charles C.
Alexander, “Invisible Empire in the Southwest: The Ku Klux Klan in Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and
Arkansas, 1920-1930” (Ph.D. diss., University of Texas, 1962).
13
USWPA, http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=mesn&fileName=163/mesn163.
db&recNum=150&itemLink=D?mesnbib:1:./temp/~ammem_01Hi::, accessed 17 February 2006.
14
A week after the group approached Andy Nelson, Sam Bass was wounded in a gun battle at
Round Rock on 19 July 1878. Texas Rangers captured Bass on July 20 and the following day, Bass died
from his wounds. Tom Flinty, Jr., “Death of Sam Bass Occurred in 1878,” Dallas Morning News, 8 July
1923.
15
Zeke Handler, ed., “Memories of Tarrant County Slaves,” in Williams, In Old Fort Worth, 13.
 96

lynch him as punishment rather than stand by and allow the legal system to punish Bunn.

According to the Dallas Morning News, the mob was so intent on taking justice upon

Bunn because “the robbery of the Lake Worth camping party was the climax of a series

of brutal attacks in and near Fort Worth and citizens were greatly aroused.”16 To avoid a

potential lynching, authorities took Bunn to the Dallas County jail after Bunn’s

indictment Thursday afternoon, 6 October 1921. A mob formed outside the Tarrant

County jail a few hours after Bunn’s removal to Dallas County. Sheriff Smith, in charge

of the Tarrant County jail, allowed fifteen men from the mob to search the jail for Bunn,

even though Smith knew Bunn was not there. While the fifteen-man committee looked

inside the jail in Fort Worth, the mob grew to approximately a thousand people. After

finding no trace of Bunn, the mob searched the Fort Worth city jail and then decided to

investigate Dallas. Sheriff Smith’s men followed the mob to the Fort Worth city jail,

heard the rallying cry to head to Dallas, and informed Smith, who called the Dallas

county jail, to be prepared for the coming mob. When a crowd of fifty people, composed

mostly of young men, came the following Friday morning to the Dallas jail, Sheriff

Harston did not allow the mob inside the building to search for Bunn. The mob did not

press further because of lack of leadership and firearms to force their way inside. Despite

the law’s protection, Bunn’s death did not come in the form of a hanging, but rather while

he was in transit from the Dallas County jail back to Fort Worth on 11 October 1921.

Rather than surrendering himself into the hands of the lynch mob, Bunn jumped out of

the moving vehicle when he saw four trucks on the road to Fort Worth. The policemen

who had been trying to protect him from the Fort Worth mob shot Bunn three times after

he jumped. The trucks, which Bunn thought belonged to the lynching mob, were actually
16
“Mob Fails to Get Negro Held Here,” Dallas Morning News, 8 October 1921.
 97

shipping packinghouse products to Dallas.17 The ironic twist of David Bunn’s death,

though violent, possibly saved him from a more gruesome fate if the Fort Worth mob had

apprehended him.

Even if no violence occurred, the mere thought of sexually mixing the races

disturbed the great majority of white Fort Worth citizens. A local black church gave a

concert at Huffman’s Hall Friday night, 16 April 1875, and young white men of the city

attended. The Fort Worth Democrat reflected an overall general distaste for African

Americans, especially socializing between white and black. “While it might be

reasonably expected that the colored race, would, [in isolated] cases, take advantage of

the law and endeavor to force themselves upon the white, we did not think a solitary

instance would ever be placed upon record when any man, or set of men, with pure

caucasian [sic] blood coursing in their veins would ever so far forget their self-respect, or

that of their race, as to mix socially with the colored race.” The same article alleged that

the event “so shocked an honest negro that he immediately took his family away, from

‘de place whar sich carryin’s on were gwine on.’” 18 While it is difficult to determine

whether the author really discussed the situation in which an African American father

attended the concert, it is clear that the author despised the black race. This overall

feeling of superiority and disdain for any colored race often had the desired effect.

Condemning any mixing of the races, be it social or sexual, created a heightened feeling

of immorality. While it may be true that a large majority of Fort Worth’s black

population could not, or would not, read the Fort Worth Democrat, it is difficult to

17
“Fort Worth Negro Shot by Officers,” Dallas Morning News, 12 October 1921, 9.
18
“Civil Rights; Disgraceful Conduct,” Fort Worth Democrat, 17 April 1875.
 98

imagine an African American hearing about the article or seeing how they were treated

without feeling socially demeaned.

At an African American Baptist convention on 15 September 1904, Texas

Governor Samuel W. T. Lanham gave a speech that portrayed a type of hypocritical

sentiment often portrayed by leading white figures at the turn of the century. He meant

to deliver his words as compliments to his African American audience, but in reality, his

words were tinged with black stereotypes.19 In his speech, Lanham did give a true

compliment as he talked about black progress for the best—“Did history ever furnish

such an instance of a people just emerging from slavery? Go on with your good work.

Do good; uphold the law.”20 That compliment, however, quickly reverted to prevailing

racial attitudes. At the end of the speech Lanham said, “In addition to keeping out of

partisan parties I would advise that you respect the social limitations between the races.

If these are transcended there will be trouble.”21 In other words, Lanham told the

congregation that they may have made social progress, but they should not assume that

they were equal to white citizens.

In common with Texas Governor Lanham’s speech, other white office holders

attempted to disguise any prejudicial remarks or undertones with compliments or an

overall concern for the good of the community. Fort Worth’s mayor in 1910, William D.

Davis, embodied such concern when he suggested that the Fort Worth City Commission

19
“Negro Baptists Meet,” Dallas Morning News, 15 September 1904, 3. Lanham’s remarks
included phrases such as: “Nobody in the world can sing like negroes;” “My nurse was a good old negro
woman;” “Don’t be afraid of the word negro; it has the same distinction as either the words Mongolian or
Caucausian [sic];” and “Your race has made great progress in learning, in morality and in good
citizenship.”
20
Ibid.
21
Ibid.
 99

should ban a filmed boxing match between Jack Johnson and Jim Jeffries from being

shown in local theaters.22 Davis and Commissioner George Mulkey thought that

showing the prizefight, which took place in Reno, Nevada, would invoke negative

feelings between whites and blacks in Fort Worth. The fight on 4 July 1910 between

Johnson, black, and Jeffries, white, resulted in Johnson winning the match. The mayor

and the commission were against showing the fight, not just because it was violent, but

mainly because the fight was between a black man and a white man in which the black

man won. In Mayor Davis’s letter to the Commission, he stated, “The big prize fight

between a white man and a negro has been pulled off in Reno, Nev., and has made a

shameful page in American history.”23 Davis’s reaction to the fight between Johnson

and Jeffries reflected a larger belief about white and African American race relations in

his city. Many white Americans believed that the two races should be completely

separated and forced to remain in their own community spheres of life. Such spheres

include living, working, learning, and recreation. This separation of races was so

predominant that white citizens during the late nineteenth century even helped hide the

African American presence in Fort Worth by leaving few published clues about their

importance to the city. Such lack of evidence indicates that whites did not consider

blacks as integral citizens. A published photograph collection from 1889 showing the

highlights of the Texas city depicted many prominent white business establishments and

22
“Prize Fight Pictures Forbidden in Fort Worth,” Dallas Morning News, 6 July 1910.
23
Ibid.
 100

homes. The only black pictured in the entire book was a woman wearing a simple dress

sitting by the front door of “Fort Worth’s first house,” a little log cabin.24

A surge in the city’s economy and more job opportunities during the first thirty

years of the twentieth century attracted a large number of African Americans, causing the

black population to grow. Fort Worth’s facilities expanded due to the influx and yet

African Americans remained second-class citizens. The city’s African American

population continued demanding equal rights and fair treatment in a city where they

remained the minority, without giving up their African heritage. In 1935, a group of one

hundred Fort Worth blacks volunteered to go to Ethiopia to fight and “spill their blood in

behalf of [their] native land” in case war broke out between Italy and the realm of

Emperor Haile Selassie.25

At the second annual Texas Commission of Interracial Cooperation (TCIC)

meeting on 2 December 1938, Dr. Edwin Elliott, the Fort Worth regional chairman for

the Federal Labor Relations Board, opened his statements with an acknowledgement of

white Americans’ past egregious actions: “What we do with our minorities in America is

a reasonable test of our democracy. We have tried slavery for the Negro but Christianity

told us that was the wrong way. . . . In our smugness and desire to exploit these

minorities we thwarted their hopes to gain place and prestige among us.” From there,

Elliott pointed out injustices the African American population continued to face in Texas.

These discriminations included lack of equality in economic opportunities, “no hotel

accommodations even for distinguished Negro artists appearing on white religious or

civic programs,” and exclusion from many civic and political rights. Elliott was outraged

24
D. H. Swartz, Photographs of Fort Worth (Fort Worth, TX: Cor. Houston and Fifth Sts, 1889).
25
“Texas Group May Enlist,” New York Times, 14 July 1935, 3.
 101

about the black exclusion from political primaries in Texas. He called these exclusions

“disgracefully undemocratic as it excludes the Negro from a voice in the selection of all

county and state officers, although [blacks] must live under [the elected] administration.”

During the meeting, Elliott asked for a host of better opportunities for Texas blacks that

included equal pay for equal work, ability to earn an adequate standard of living, and

protection from “mob fury [and] from illegal trials which all too often are based upon

mistaken identity, caprice or prejudice.” 26 Despite the interracial equality the TCIC

promoted, the meetings remained segregated, with white men and women meeting in the

afternoon and black men and women meeting in the evening. Despite the TCIC’s

existence and insistence for black equal rights, the African American community in Fort

Worth continued an uphill battle for equality for another thirty years into the 1960s and

1970s.

City Segregation and the Efforts to Create Unity

Fort Worth slipped into segregation easily at the city’s beginnings. Texas was a

slave state before the Civil War and, thus, Fort Worth’s social structure became a direct

product of the state’s history. As freed blacks moved to the Texas community, they

created their own businesses and schools, but still had to rely on white hospitals and

specialties that remained solely white controlled. Jim Crow laws and segregated society

extended into the 1950s and touched recreational areas, public transportation, and

businesses such as restaurants, hotels, department stores, and theaters. In the mid-

twentieth century specific Fort Worth public parks, zoos, swimming pools, and golf

courses remained closed to black citizens. The only day of the year blacks could legally

26
“Texas Urged to Give Negro More Rights,” Dallas Morning News, 3 December 1938.
 102

visit these all-white areas was on Juneteenth, when the all-white city government lifted

the invisible barrier. The citywide black freedom celebration started to dwindle in 1953

after a group of African American ministers in Fort Worth objected to the blatant

inequality portrayed on a day that signified their right to have equal access to all areas

within the city.27 What was the use of celebrating an event that obviously meant nothing

to those who controlled city laws and purposefully barred them from enjoying the

freedoms Juneteenth indicated? Fort Worth African Americans continued to push for

equal access to recreational facilities in the city. They requested entrée to the zoo, public

pools, golf courses, and parks or the creation of their own facilities. Unfortunately, the

city government did not adopt either option. Instead, the issues seemed to meld into

other segregation protests occurring in the 1950s.

In December 1951, police arrested Mrs. Essie B. Sturgess for breaking the Fort

Worth Transit Company’s segregation ordinance by sitting near a white girl on a public

bus. The local bus company’s policies stated that whites must sit from the front of the

bus and take seats leading back, while blacks sat in the back of the bus and filled seats

forward. This transportation ordinance began in 1905 when it applied to streetcars and

carried over into the 1950s.28 When thirty-nine-year-old Sturgess first boarded the bus,

she stayed standing because the bus was full. Throughout the ride, whites progressively

got off until only African Americans remained. Weary from standing, Sturgess sat down

near other blacks. Subsequently, a white girl boarded the vehicle and decided to sit next

to Sturgess. Seeing the two races sitting near each other on a bus with vacant seats, the

27
Chester Rosson, “Juneteenth,” www.texasmonthly.com/ranch/readme/juneteenth.php, Date
Accessed: 18 April 2005.
28
Selcer, Fort Worth, 42.
 103

bus driver, C. B. Beck, grew angry and ordered Sturgess to move to another seat. When

she refused to change seats, the bus driver called the police who arrested Sturgess at the

next stop. Essie Sturgess did not stay in jail for long after paying a $10 cash bond. The

trial took place three weeks after the incident on 28 December 1951 before Judge W. H.

Gilmartin in front of a courtroom filled with African Americans. Sturgess’s attorney,

Coleman Cline, did not need to defend his client during the trial because the city’s

prosecuting attorney, Tom Chapman, suggested the case be thrown out due to insufficient

evidence. According to Beck, no seats were available behind Sturgess on the bus,

therefore making the issue a moot point since Sturgess did not have an alternative seating

choice. Judge Gilmartin agreed with Chapman and dismissed the case.29

African Americans composed approximately 15 to 20 percent of all Fort Worth

transit customers. To incur their wrath would result in a similar profit loss that occurred

later in Montgomery, Alabama. Four years after the Sturgess case, the Supreme Court

ruled the end of bus segregation throughout the nation. It was then that the city of Fort

Worth decided to end the segregation ordinance on Fort Worth buses. City officials

claimed that the end of segregated transit edicts passed due to the Supreme Court ruling,

even though it is more likely that the city government wanted to stop a possible protest

and profit loss before it began.30 A family-owned business followed suit to protect its

revenue and avoid a public protest only six years later in 1960 as African Americans in

Fort Worth wanted access to more than public transportation.

29
“Woman Arrested on Bus; Free on Bond,” Fort Worth The Call, 14 December 1951; “Trial Set
for Negro Woman who Refused to Move in Bus,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 13 December 1951, 15; “Bus
Seat Case Against Negro is Dismissed,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 29 December 1951, 2. Richard F.
Selcer suggests that the case was dismissed to “avoid an embarrassing public spectacle and possible racial
conflict.” Selcer, Fort Worth, 46.
30
John Ohendalski, “Ruling May Halt Bus Segregation in Fort Worth,” Fort Worth Press, 14
November 1956.
 104

At a time when most white establishments refused to give service to black

patrons, Marvin Leonard gladly allowed African Americans into his department store;

however, they still were not allowed to sit at the lunch-counter, eat from the buffet, or use

the white bathrooms or water fountain. Despite the Jim Crow restrictions, blacks

frequently shopped at Leonard Brothers and maintained a good reputation with the owner

and vice versa. The downtown department store was a landmark in Fort Worth since the

store’s opening in 1918. Leonard’s always served both white and African American

customers and focused on making them feel at home. The store had a progressive nature

within the city, but the owners remained wary of controversy. For example, an incident

in the 1940s occurred where an employee served an African American customer at the

sandwich counter before a white customer. The white customer complained to the

management and Leonard chose to exclude blacks from that service counter and

eventually made segregated sandwich stands. This line of thinking, however, began to

change in the 1950s. Due to the changing residential pattern after World War Two where

more African Americans lived in town while whites moved into the suburbs, Leonard’s

clientele changed to a predominantly black customer base. Leonard took a great chance

on the day he took down the “white-only” and “colored-only” signs from around his store

in 1960. Earlier that year, black youths demonstrated in Greensboro and Nashville, thus

initiating the sit-in movement throughout the southern states. Days before Leonard

removed the signs from his store a small group of Fort Worth black young adults blocked

the Leonard Brothers department store entrance. Leonard knew that desegregation must

end in Fort Worth, Texas eventually. When he weighed the pros and cons concerning the

impact his action would have on business, Leonard decided that he would rather retain
 105

the 15 to 30 percent black patronage his store brought in and possibly sacrifice the

remaining white 70 percent rather than turn his back on progress. Desegregation at

Leonard Brother’s came silently with few complaints. The denoted race signs came

down without ceremony and the managers told the employees at the lunch counter to

serve anyone who wanted to eat.31 Leonard’s decision led his store to become the first

desegregated business in Fort Worth.32 Three years later, when the public school system

could no longer stave off the federal court’s insistence to integrate, the rest of Fort

Worth’s businesses desegregated. Restaurants, hotels, theaters, and department and drug

stores took down their signs and invisible barriers. African Americans were welcome, as

long as they intended to buy products or use the services rather than “merely prove

something.” In other words, if they came to protest or other sorts of “trouble,” blacks

could simply turn around and walk out the door.33 Amazingly, the Fort Worth business

integration process apparently succeeded without any incidents from either white or black

patrons.

In 1969, the Fort Worth City Council approved a civil rights ordinance within the

city. The ordinance provided fines of $25 to $200 to many places of business if the

owner or employees discriminated against customers based on color, which included both

black and Mexican-American citizens. Establishments governed under the ordinance

were hotels and motels, restaurants and bars, commercial businesses, skating rinks, golf

31
Victoria and Walter L. Buenger, Texas Merchant: Marvin Leonard and Fort Worth (College
Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 1998). Leonard’s Brothers department store grew steadily
since its opening and became very well known in Fort Worth. The owners sold the store to a larger
corporation in October 1967 and the store disappeared from Fort Worth’s landscape in the 1970s.
32
Tim Madigan, “Signs of Change,” www.kri.com/papers/greatstories/worth/jimcrow6.html, Date
Accessed: 18 April 2005.
33
W. L. Redus, “Desegregation Steps Here Disclosed,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 23 June 1963.
 106

courses, washaterias, and bowling lanes. Private clubs, country clubs, and boarding

houses with permanent guests remained outside of the civil rights ordinance

jurisdiction.34

It took close to one hundred years for Fort Worth to fully integrate all areas of the

city, but the fight was well worth it. As the years continue to move the nation forward in

racial tolerance and unity, the city progresses as well. Even though Fort Worth remains a

predominantly white city, the space is shared equally with all the various races that

compose the area. The African American and white race relations experience opened a

door in the southern town that allows people from all backgrounds the ability to live,

work, vote, and learn equally.

34
“Fort Worth Passes Civil Rights Law,” Dallas Morning News, 12 November 1969.
 CHAPTER SEVEN

Epilogue—How the Pieces of the Puzzle Fit

The decades between 1875, the end of Reconstruction, and the late 1970s saw

Fort Worth, Texas change from a Southern frontier town into a thriving metropolis.

Commerce moved from agriculture to packing houses and factories while the

demographics reflected the economic growth. Referring back to the question posed at the

end of the introduction, Fort Worth’s history created a niche within the United States.

The debate concerning whether Texas is a southern or a western state continues, but at

least in Fort Worth’s case, the answer is clear. The city’s economy originally based in

agriculture and ranching, was very similar to western towns along the country’s frontier.

The prevailing racial attitudes toward African Americans, however, were distinctly

southern. It is these attitudes that are the most significant and dominant distinguishers of

the city’s characteristics and which place the town and state as a southern state. But more

than simply denoting the city as southern, Fort Worth African Americans had a very

similar experience to other blacks throughout the nation’s urban centers. Perhaps the

city’s civil rights history was not as violent as experiences in other cities, but Fort Worth

African Americans fought the same prejudices and barriers as their other brethren in the

United States. As the city of Fort Worth’s population and economy grew, so did areas of

politics and available occupations, as well as other factors. The African American urban

experience, especially, changed with the town.

107
 108

Throughout the period covered in this thesis a significant pattern emerged. Much

like the city, as years passed, the African American community of Fort Worth pushed the

barriers of preconceived notions in the United States to create their own progressive

history. In the city’s case, it was a geographic stereotype of being a small dusty western

town. For Fort Worth African Americans, it was the racial stereotypes and prejudices

that barred them in many areas of society but against which they unified and fought for

better conditions. Fort Worth African Americans had a southern urban experience

because southern prejudice created obstacles for them. Racial tension was a common

theme in the years following the Civil War and continued in Fort Worth at the turn of the

century. Prejudice and segregation occurred in all aspects of the city—in the job market,

sports, entertainment, legal justice, and education. These obstacles, however, did not

hold blacks back.

As Fort Worth’s city boundaries expanded and the population grew, African

Americans held a pronounced place within the city’s demographics. While the county’s

racial composition contains a majority of white citizens, African Americans made up12

percent of the population in 1990 and 13.8 percent in the 2000 census. (Table 8)

Table 8. 1990 and 2000 Tarrant County Census Information

Pop. White African Asian Hispanic Native

American American
1990 1,170,103 917,501 140,740 29,705 139,879 5,551
Percentage of Pop.: 78% 12% 2.5% 12% .47%
2000 1,446,219 1,154,083 199,578 60,741 345,646 101,235
Percentage of Pop.: 79.8% 13.8% 4.2% 23.9% .7%
Source: All data is from U.S. Bureau of the Census, Census of Population, 1990 and
2000.
 109

These numbers state that while Fort Worth drew a large population of African

Americans, it was not nearly on the scale as larger cities such as Chicago or New York.

The tables also portray numbers that show how African Americans are neither the

majority nor a true minority. (Table 9)

Table 9. 2000 Fort Worth City Census Information

Population White African Asian Hispanic Native

American American
534,694 319,212 108,543 13,902 159,339 32,082
Percentage of Pop.; 59.7% 20.3% 2.6% 29.8% .6%
Source: All data is from U.S. Bureau of the Census, Census of Population, 2000.

Despite how far Fort Worth has come since 1875, the city still has a way to go

before being a fully integrated metropolis where African Americans move to fulfill the

great American dream. It is doubtful there is currently a city within the United States that

could guarantee such an ideal goal. Racial prejudices still haunt the city streets,

especially among predominantly segregated residential neighborhoods.1 In 1980, Fort

Worth ranked as the eighteenth most segregated city in the United States. In order for the

complete integration of the city’s neighborhoods, 77.9 percent needed to move. While

the segregated residential situation is improving, it seems more likely to indicate that the

rising middle class is leaving poor black neighborhoods.2

As Fort Worth’s economy changed, the city’s racial demographics changed as

well. The rising job market brought hopeful African Americans into the Texas city in

1
There are suggestions that racial prejudices still occur in Fort Worth, as seen by this article
published just last year, 3 March 2004: Anthony Spangler, “Data on Stops by Police Suggest Racial
Disparity,” www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/8094020.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp, Date Accessed:
22 January 2005.
2
Mark R. Warren, “IAF in Texas: Creating a Multi-Racial Democratic Community: Case Study of
the Texas Industrial Areas Foundation,” www.tresser.com/iafin.htm; Date Accessed: 28 April 2005.
 110

search of work. They did indeed find jobs, especially those relating to the budding

railroads and bustling new stores and restaurants which required porters and waiters.

African American women found plenty of work in washing and mending clothes.

African Americans of both genders crossed racial boundaries and took jobs as mail

carriers and porters on trains. They even opened their own businesses in black

neighborhoods and along the “9th Street drag” between Jones and Calhoun.

Inspired by success in the business world, African Americans continued a trend of

rising within Fort Worth society as they took on the political world. Around the turn of

the century, white politicians took advantage of African American male voters. As the

Republican and Democratic parties ignored black opinions, politically minded African

American leaders stood up for their brethren. They constantly rallied each other to take a

stand in state and local politics. Such men included the editor of the Galveston City

Times, W. H. Noble in 1902 and Waco attorney, R. D. Evans, in 1922. Through these

efforts and arguments, they encouraged each other to take a more active role in politics

and therefore their own lives. In 1922, Fort Worth African Americans created a branch

of the Independent Colored Voters’ League. Thirty years later, the city itself created a

biracial committee to discuss all issues pertaining to the various races within the city.

These activities though spread apart, shows the tenacity of African American citizens in

Fort Worth as they worked toward political equality and progress.

Such ventures within the business and political world may not have had such

success without the foundations within the African American community provided by

churches, schools, and other social organizations. Churches played a fundamental role in

the African American culture within Fort Worth. They were the first social institutions
 111

created even before the city’s founding in 1873. Not only did local churches provide

spiritual guidance and moral teachings, they created a location for gatherings to discuss

current issues and problems within the city. Such gathering places built a sense of

community and unity, two extremely important aspects for a healthy racial identity in a

society steeped in racial prejudicial history. This strong sense of identity carried Fort

Worth African Americans through the decades, allowing them to push past the

stereotypes and create a firm place within the city.

For Fort Worth African American churches, however, providing a sense of

identity and racial pride was not the only thing they gave to the community. Black

churches were the first institutions to create schools for the African American children in

Fort Worth. They began as private schools and, with the advent of the Freedmen’s

Bureau after the Civil War, created a few small public schools. Churches also played an

important part in nurturing the growth of African American businesses, especially

regarding construction work. All of the black churches in the Fort Worth city limits are

located either along the original African American business strip on 9th Street, or within

the various all-black residential neighborhoods.

Education in Fort Worth has taken great strides since the city’s organization.

From private schools founded by churches, the Freedmen’s Bureau opening public

schools through churches in 1865, and finally to locally funded institutions, African

Americans fought for their rights to gain an education. They knew what was important to

them, their city, and their cultural future. As far as educational equality, however,

Clifford Davis and the NAACP fight for complete school integration did not end in the

1960s. Even into the 1980s, the federal courts kept a watch on Fort Worth school
 112

integration to ensure the city achieved a desired 78 percent white and 22 percent black

student ratio in the same school. In 1988 Judge Eldon Mahon stopped the required

busing and ruled that the Fort Worth schools had “successfully merged into a unitary

system.” In 1992, however, the NAACP asked the federal courts to continue to preside

over an old teacher integration case opened in 1966. In the case, the NAACP aimed for

30 percent of Fort Worth schoolteachers to be African American. By 1992, the school

system only reached 22 percent of the required African American teachers in Fort Worth

public schools.3 The idea of complete integration in Fort Worth schools may be a goal

that might not fully be achieved. This is not because the city itself does not want to have

the desired student ratios and teacher percentages set forth in earlier law disputes, but

rather the demographics do not supply the necessary numbers. As seen in the population

layout of Fort Worth in Table 9, African Americans only make up approximately 20

percent of the city population, while Latinos have become the second most populous

group in the growing metropolis.

Fort Worth is quickly becoming a microcosm of the American melting pot and as

such, older southern prejudices do not hold as much influence as earlier in the century.

The African American urban experience in Fort Worth contained numerous obstacles in

the form of racial tensions, violence, and stereotypes, but as a minority race in a city

steeped in southern idealism, African Americans succeeded in gaining a foothold within

the city.

3
Gracie Bonds, “NAACP Calls for Teachers: Desegregation Order Unmet, Group Says,” Fort
Worth Star-Telegram, 29 September 1992.
 113

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