Buffalo Soldiers by Jeffery Robenalt In nearly thirty years of dedicated and arduous service, Buffalo Soldiers won the grudging respect of even the most prejudiced of their white officers. The black cavalrymen and infantrymen were awarded nine Medals of Honor for meritorious valor in combat and countless other awards and commendations for distinguished service. More importantly, Buffalo Soldiers were a credit to the African-American race.
Henry O. Flipper, The Lost Epic by C. F. Eckhardt Henry O. Flipper, 10th US Cavalry - Flipper was by no means the first Black ever appointed to West Point, but he was the first to complete four years and graduate as a commissioned officer in the US Army...
Bose Ikard by Clay Coppedge Bose Ikard was born into slavery and became rancher Charley Goodnight�s most trusted and respected cowhand.
Barnett, Etta Moten Etta Moten Barnett by John Troesser November 5th, 1901 - January - 2004 "Life does not owe me one thing." "While her birth in Weimar, Texas may have just been chance, it's her accomplishments after she left Weimar that deserve a closer look. When she died last year of cancer (in Chicago) at the age of 102, Etta Moten Barnett had had a rich and full life.. She is now remembered as an actress, singer, and philanthropist ..."
Bledsoe, Jules Ten Thing you should know about Jules Bledsoe by John Troesser Photos courtesy The Texas Collection, Baylor University His role as "Joe" in Jerome Kern's Showboat made "Ol' Man River" an American classic.
Castle, Charlie The Bootblack King by Bob Bowman It has been thirty years since Charlie Castle died, but they still talk about him in Lufkin. Charlie was a legend, a black man who, according to many East Texans in the fifties, delivered the best shoe shine in Texas.
Coleman, Bessie Air Pioneer by Bob Bowman In 1921 she became the only black pilot in the world. A year later she became the first black woman to fly over American soil.
Cuney, Norris Wright Norris Cuney by Archie P. McDonald "... Cuney technically began life as a slave..." Norris Wright Cuney by Archie P. McDonald The most remarkable African American leader in Texas in the nineteenth century.
Dightman, Myrtis Honoring a bull riding legend by Bob Bowman Myrtis Dightman has finally received the attention he should have had decades ago. Born in Crockett in 1935, Dightman was a legendary bull rider who set all types of records for riding raging bulls in rodeo arenas across the United States.
Flipper, Henry O. Henry O. Flipper, An Epic Remaining To Be Told by C. F. Eckhardt Perhaps the most enigmatic figure in the annals of the American West is not Johnny Ringo of maybe-suicide/maybe-murder or the deliberately enigmatic Mysterious Dave Mather, but 2/LT Henry O. Flipper, 10th United States Cavalry...
Goyens, William William Goyens by Archie P. McDonald This is the story of a free black man who lived and thrived in Nacogdoches during the days of slavery.
Hamilton, Jeff Sam Houston's trusted friend was born a slave by Murray Montgomery 8-27-13 The man who was born into slavery and went on to become a trusted friend of Sam Houston died in Belton on April 3, 1941. He is honored by two Texas historical markers...
Ikard, Bose Bose Ikard by Clay Coppedge Bose Ikard was born into slavery and became rancher Charley Goodnight�s most trusted and respected cowhand. For Ikard, more than most, the road to the history books was a long and winding one.
Mary of Perry, Texas Mary, Mary, Once of Perry by Toney Urban Unbelievable, but true stories connected to Perry, Texas (Falls County) "In the late 40s and early 50s, there was a Black lady named Mary (last name unknown), that would arrive out in the countryside near Perry, Texas and dispense some incredibly amazing medicine and conversation....."
McCullough, Samuel Samuel McCullough Cartoon by Roger T. Moore His was likely the first blood shed in the war for independence
Miller, Doris Doris Miller: Hero by Archie P. McDonald African American hero of WWII
Old Sock" Shicole Dickenson Former slave's death in 1889 attracted rare news coverageby W. T. Block In February 1889, Beaumont Enterprise published an obituary about a Black centenarian, nicknamed "Old Sock," in an age when Black obituaries were usually printed only in Negro newspapers...
Pickett, Bill Never another like Bill Pickett by Clay Coppedge Bill Pickett invented the practice of what we know as bulldogging, or steer wrestling....
Second Cavalry Division at Fort Clark Historical Marker The only all-black cavalry division in U.S. Army history and the largest mounted formation ever to serve in Texas.
Seminole Scouts Seminole Scout Camp in Fort Clark Historical Marker The Whirlwind Lt. John Lapham Bullis and the Seminole Negro Scouts by C. F. Eckhardt "One of the least-known heroes of the Texas frontier was a man known to his followers as The Whirlwind and to his enemies as The Thunderbolt..... John Bullis didn't do it all alone. He had a lot of help. The help, mostly, was the Seminole Negro scouts. What became of them?..."
Robert �Sunshine� Stubblefield Carnie Philosophy by Mike Cox Through the last decades of Jim Crow America, he worked as dancing minstrel, a black in blackface clowning
Thergood Thergood's Pine by Bob Bowman The story of a slave and the oldest pine tree in East Texas.
A Hero Named Tom by C. F. Eckhardt We don�t know much about Tom�s background, because Tom was a slave. He belonged to William Snyder, a plantation owner in East Texas. We�re told that he was about 35 years old, stood well over 6 feet in height, and weighed about 240 pounds. He was also, apparently, immensely strong...
Wells, Willie El Diablo gets his due by Clay Coppedge Austin native Willie Wells was one of the best shortstops to ever play professional baseball but he was also one of generations of players who performed in relative obscurity because of Major League Baseball's long-standing "gentleman's agreement" that kept Black players out of the big leagues.
Wilson, Dooley Casablanca�s East Texan by Bob Bowman Dooley Wilson played the piano player who sang �As Time Goes By,� in the classic film Casablanca. An African-American, Wilson was born as Arthur Wilson on April 3, 1886, in Tyler. MORE
Slaves by Mike Cox A better way to comprehend slavery is to read some of the official paperwork filed away in the courthouses of Texas counties that existed before the Civil War and the freedom for blacks that followed in 1865.
A Different Kind of Alamo Story by Clay Coppedge Alamo commander William Barrett Travis' slave, Joe... reported seeing a Black woman "laying dead between two guns" in the battle's aftermath. She was the only woman to die at the Alamo. Until recently, her identity was a mystery.
Birthday Cake with 111 Candles washed down with "Good" whiskey by Mike Cox Sullivan claimed his mother had been one of George Washington�s slaves. Eventually freed by the first president, Sullivan�s mother married a man named Sullivan and had several children. Though free, her children ended up being pressed back into slavery, literally �sold down the river� from Kentucky to Mississippi.
Slave Ada Stone by Murray Montgomery 109-Year-Old Ex-Slave Recalls Days Long Past
Former slave recalls memories of old Lavaca County by Murray Montgomery In 1946, a black man by the name of Tate Hicks told a local paper that he was the oldest man in Lavaca County. Fact is, he came to Texas as a slave...
The Fire in the State Capitol by Mike Cox When McBride died at 76 on April 8, 1936, the Associated Press, which like the rest of the mainstream media in Jim Crow days did not normally report the natural passing of African-Americans, distributed a four-paragraph story noting the death of �the negro who indirectly caused construction of Texas� massive granite capitol.�
PLACES
Old Emporia by Bob Bowman It is on one of the most enduring mysteries in East Texas. In the early 1900s, an explosion and fire struck the old Emporia sawmill south of what is now Diboll. More than thirty sawmill workers, most of them black, are believed to have perished in the conflagration. Burned beyond recognition, the men were reportedly buried in a mass grave somewhere on the Emporia town site, now a part of Diboll, with no tombstones to mark their final resting place....
Sweet Home Sweet Home Vocational and Agricultural School On National Register of Historic Places Recorded Texas Historic Landmark
Black History by Dana Goolsby Black history has deep roots in the first county in Texas...
Corinth Baptist Church Cemetery by John Troesser Black church and cemetery in Schulenburg, Texas For a tiny cemetery, a disporportionate number of veterans graves.
Jarvis Christian College by Archie P. McDonald Obtaining a collegiate education presented a problem for African Americans in Texas prior to court-ordered racial integration which began in the 1950s... In Texas, especially East Texas, Wiley College in Marshall and Jarvis Christian College in Hawkins were about the only options for undergraduate instruction...
Science Hill by Bob Bowman Science Hill lasted only a few decades, but its reputation as a center of education is well-remembered by descendants of its founders and builders. So is its violence in the early days of the Civil War...
Juneteenth by Archie P. McDonald On June 19, 1865, Union General Gordon Granger brought the full force of the United States military establishment to Galveston and proclaimed the Civil War at an end and all wartime proclamations by President Abraham Lincoln in effect in the Lone Star State. Part of that dealt with the end of slavery in Texas...
Wilson Pottery by Clay Coppedge One of the first if not the very first African-American owned businesses in Texas was in Capote, not far from Seguin in Guadalpe County... Examples of Wilson stoneware have been exhibited at the Witte Museum in San Antonio, the Institute of Texas Cultures in San Antonio, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. The Wilson Pottery Foundation, with its own museum, is dedicated to preserving the memory and works of Hiram and the other Wilsons who, in bondage and as free men, created durable and practical stoneware that today is worth more than what any of the Wilson potters made in a lifetime.
Long Hot Summers by Archie P. McDonald Veterans of the "long hot summers" of the summers of the 1960s, a time of racial tension, would have thought it "de ja vu all over again" if they had remembered 1919...
Woman's Christian Temperance Union by Archie P. McDonald The Woman�s Christian Temperance Union was misnamed: �temperance� means �moderation...avoiding extremes.� What the WCTU really wanted was total abstinence from all alcohol beverages. They wanted everyone connected with brewing, distilling, fermenting, and selling alcohol out of business and right now...
Skull Island on Mermentau River, A Slave Ship's Inhumanity by W. T. Block ("Cannonball's Tales") "Back in 1949 my Uncle Austin Sweeney of Nederland, TX who was born and reared in Grand Chenier, LA., told me the story of a slaver captains inhumanity so bestial, that it is difficult for the human mind to comprehend it. It was the story of 200 starving African slaves abandoned on a marsh ridge on Mermentau River, where they were left to die horrific deaths..."
Black Soldiers in the Confederate Army by Murray Montgomery "... Not only did they fight, these soldiers distinguished themselves on the battlefield..."
Black Cowboys by Murray Montgomery The black cowboy has been part of the ranching industry in Texas for a long time. They were born into slavery in the beginning but after the Civil War they continued to work on the ranches as free men...
How Boogie Woogie Began by Bob Bowman In 1939, African American historian E. Simms Campbell wrote, �Boogie Woogie piano playing originated in the lumber and turpentine camps of Texas and in the sporting houses of that state.�
Freeny Hanging by Mike Cox James Washington White lost an arm fighting for the South during the Civil War. He could have spent the rest of his life seething with bitterness, but that�s not how it turned out.
Scrolling Through History by Bob Bowman For black families, who have always had a difficult time researching their earliest ancestors because of poor records dealing with slaves, Murphy�s book has been widely welcomed.
KKK from "Texas Tales" column by Mike Cox Unsung heroes who were instrumental in putting the end to the Ku Klux Klan in Texas
