Dallas Black History Timeline from Heritage Park, Shotgun House, October 2017

The following Black History Timeline for Dallas was photographed in October 2017 as it was presented on the walls of the Shotgun House in Dallas Heritage Village. As any timeline it reflects decisions about interpretations of history and could include many more dates and people.  It is a wonderful start!   Some additions to the history have been typed below between the photos taken.

May 27, 1853 a slave known as Jane Elkins became the first woman executed by hanging after a trial in Texas. See blog posting. A handwritten record of that legal action is on microfilm in the Dallas Central Library. She was estimated to be 53 years old and had been hired out by her owner to care for two children of a widower she ultimately hit in the head with an axe.  There was no defense against murder for rape. When asked to comment at her trial she said nothing. 

(To show the atmosphere at the time: In 1855 another slave, age 19 named Celia in Missouri, had a defense lawyer who actively used the rape defense in her defense for the murder of her owner who had regularly raped her since she was 14.  She gave birth to two children.  The appeal went to the Missouri Supreme Court and her conviction stood. She had a still birth in jail.  She was hung on December 21, 1855.)

Dallas Martyr's Park and John F. Kennedy

In 1860 three Black men were murdered on the banks of the Trinity River near downtown Dallas by a crowd with no trial and no ability to defend themselves against false charges involving "insurrection" and burning building in Dallas. But these were not the first public hangings of slaves in Dallas. Seven years earlier Jane Elkins had been hung near the jailhouse within a block of Courthouse Square where "Old Red" now stands.  It was after killing her overseer. He had probably either sexually molested, or attempted to molest, either her, or one of her children, or maybe a grandchild. That was the only way to stop such abuse.  She probably knew she would be executed. She said nothing at her trial and was never given an attorney. See https://billbetzen.blogspot.com/2017/11/jane-elkins-black-female-about-age-53.html. 

There are many martyrs who should be remembered in Dallas Martyr's Park!

In 1991 the land near where the 1860 hangings happened, and only 2 blocks from Courthouse Square, was renamed Martyr's Park.  It is downtown Dallas to the Northside of Elm street as you drive west and go under the triple underpass under the railroads.

This week a long-overdue article was written asking why more of this history is unknown, why is this history hidden?  See that Dallas Morning News article at https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2017/10/06/dallas-hates-erasing-history-much-anyone-know-park-three-slaves-hanged .


The above map shows where Martyr's Park is located:

It is very appropriate that it is simply on the "other side of the tracks" from the tragic location of the J. F. Kennedy Assassination.  President Kennedy had introduced what became the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to the nation on June 11, 1963 in a national radio address. (Listen to it at Televised Address to the Nation on Civil Rights | JFK Library) He changed the basic civil rights issues from legal issues into moral issues.  Remember, this was when everything was segregated by race: schools, neighborhoods, lunch counters.  Tragically, his death within 6 months probably helped speed the signing of this monumental legislation within 9 months of his 11-22-63 death.  The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was signed on July 2, 1964. It was followed on August 6th of 1965 by the Voting Rights Act. (https://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/civilrights/prize.htm)

If Dallas were to build the long-overdue memorial for Martyr's Park, they could include the many who died due to the racism that had plagued the US for centuries.  This would include the three men who died in 1860, and others publicly killed at gatherings in Dallas such as Jane Elkins "legally executed" just 7 years earlier, May 27th of 1853, as a focus. A Historical Marker to the JFK work to start the process toward the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act should be placed on the east side entrance to the pedestrian tunnel under the railroad tracks. 

A Black History Timeline, similar to the one now in the Shotgun House at Dallas Heritage Park, could be placed into the walkway under the railroad track.  It could be well lit so people could easily follow Black History back to 1860.  This would illustrate the painful history leading up to  President Kennedy's 6/11/63 national radio address on Civil Rights.  

See photos from the location below to better explain.

The 1853 hanging of Jane Elkins on Dallas Courthouse Square was the first legal execution of a woman in Texas.  She had no lawyer. Judge John H. Reagon handled her trial and ordered her death. He went on to become the Confederate Postmaster and has a Dallas school named after him. Austin Texas removed his name from the high school named for him there.

This is Martyr's Park and the area surrounding it.  It is an open canvas for Dallas to write on and preserve an accurate record of our history, and our dreams for the future.  Done well it will become a major tourist attraction in its own right.

Other opinions are welcome as to the accuracy of the position of the "X" in the above photo.  Much has changed.

Dallas ISD Magnet Admission Policy, two change recommendations

Magnet School Admission Policy in DISD needs two changes.  Find them in the text, in red, below.

The most popular DISD magnets continue to be reported as having valuable places denied to lifelong, talented DISD students.  These are places that are instead going to students who have never attended DISD, or who live outside DISD and were able to attend due to fraudulent applications and the renting of vacant apartments inside DISD to gain admission to our best magnets.

The most valuable lesson DISD must make certain all students receive is honesty.  We must design our policy to presume the truth.  Therefore, recommendation number one is to add one sentence on page two of the policy after the number 4 in the text wherein it states:

"For each magnet program, all qualified in-District students shall be served before any out-of-District student may gain admission into that magnet program. Proof of residence shall be submitted each year.”  Then add this sentence: ”If this proof of residence is at any time found to be misleading or false, a student is subject to immediate dismissal from the magnet program."

If anyone complains about this addition, DISD should simply say that if honesty is a problem that needs to be talked about.  Otherwise this change should affect nobody.

After that sentence this addition is recommended:
These two changes will allow the ethnic and racial balance to be regained that at one time was enjoyed at schools like Booker T. Washington before the Federal over-site ended.  These changes will more directly serve lifelong DISD students in the process.  

The second recommendation is on page one of current policy where it states:

“Seats shall be awarded to District students based on the following formula:

1. Thirty percent of the seats awarded District-wide by rank ordering applicants based on overall criteria score. These students shall be chosen solely on the basis of merit without consideration of feeder pattern or sibling status.”

”All criteria scores will be increased by one point for every year a DISD student attended DISD prior to application, including the current year."

This will increase the potential for life-long DISD students to be accepted.  It will lessen the chances of poverty and inability to secure private professional music and art lessons stopping an admission for an otherwise talented student, a student whose interest and talent survived underfunded arts programs in DISD middle schools.

Dallas White Flight, Dates, Numbers, and Lies

"Desegregation of the Dallas Schools was accomplished in the course of ten short years with a minimum of commotion and stress. This may be viewed as just short of miraculous." Published 1966.

"Education in Dallas" P 159

Desegregation was required by the Brown v Board of Education Supreme Court decision in 1954. Twelve years later this was the public record of desegregation in Dallas as found in a book published in 1966 called "Education in Dallas - 1874 to 1966." The book is in the Dallas Central Library, and several friends have told me they have it. The less than 2 page section on desegregation starts on page 159. The next decade proved the statement quoted above evolved into a great lie!

This was the public record Jim Schutze was facing as he wrote Accommodations. Accommodations will be discussed in the first of four weekly gatherings starting 8-8-17 at 7 pm at Mac's Southside, 1701 S. Lamar, Dallas. Here is the Facebook Link with details:  https://www.facebook.com/TheAccomodation/

Accommodations is best read with an understanding of DISD desegregation issues and history during these years.

DISD Administration has rarely been more wrong in an enrollment prediction than in May and August 1970. In May DISD was predicting as many as 180,000 students by the end of that school year. By August that prediction was down to 177,000 students. The final full enrollment count for 1970/71 was only 164,726. 

In 1969/70 DISD had a full enrollment of 173,799 students, the largest annual enrollment ever!  DISD thought they would be growing, but then suddenly started to shrink. The loss of White students was for the first time thousands greater than the increase in minority students that had sustained total DISD enrollment growth since 1965.  A new stage of White flight began as DISD full enrollment began to shrink. That shrinkage continued until 46,337 students had been lost in just 14 years! The full enrollment of 173,799 in 1970 was down to 127,462 by 1984. 

The summer of 1970 was the highest loss of White students in all 44 years of White Flight, 1965-2009, and in all of DISD History!

(I estimate that over 10,000 White students left the summer of 1970! - BB)

In 1971/72 DISD had the second highest loss as another 8,698 students left. White Flight continued with thousands leaving annually for three decades, until 2002 when the annual White loss fell to and remained in the hundreds for a total of 8 more years.

The 1964/65 school year was the highest White enrollment on record for DISD, 127,124. Then White numbers began to decline in 1966, but minority numbers grew faster than the White decline until 1970. Above please find the two pages from a 1874-1966 DISD History describing the desegregation process. Notice the page with cut out to highlight the desegregation process in DISD, and the statistical consequences. Also find below the chart with enrollment by race from 1970 to 2015.

White Flight ended in 2009 when White enrollment hit 7,207, the lowest DISD White enrollment in over 120 years. (This is an estimate as I have not yet checked 1889 enrollment numbers from 120 years earlier.)  In 2010 White enrollment went up, for the first time in 45 years, to 7,232. 

White enrollment increases have continued but are tragically concentrated in the best magnet schools, such as the Booker T. Washington Arts Magnet. Often non-minority students from expensive private schools, who were never DISD students, and often do not even live inside DISD, take places that should go to Black and Hispanic students from inside DISD. The Civil Rights battles are not finished!    

Magnet school demographics must come MUCH closer to matching those of DISD! How do you defend a ten-fold over-representation of White students? (Warning, listen to yourself trying to defend this privately before you do it in public. Record yourself and listen.)

All students must have an equal right to the best education possible! Racial patterns in achievement are still far too common.

There is still a well documented pattern of misusing need-based federal funds that are supposed to supplement education for children of poverty, children who do not speak English, and who have other special needs and therefore are allocated such Federal Funds. While these need based funds are properly allocated to the right schools, that increase is used to then replace regular funding that is moved from those high poverty schools to other less needy schools and apparently for other administrative costs in Dallas ISD. 

A federal complaint was filed 4-21-15 against DISD for the massive supplantation of federal funds that happened under Mike Miles.  This is how he was mysteriously able to secure a surplus while funding new programs in DISD. Here is a link to that complaint which is still under active investigation by the U.S. Department of Education, Civil Rights Division: http://schoolarchiveproject.blogspot.com/2015/06/title-vi-complaint-against-disd.html .  This complaint was amply covered on the evening news on June 3, 2015 covering also the resignation of the DISD Budget Director. See  http://www.wfaa.com/news/local/investigates/budget-director-leaves-amid-questions-of-misspent-disd-at-risk-funds/148904332 . 

Within 3 weeks, on 6-23-15, Superintendent Mike Miles also resigned.

We now know that underachievement by minority children of poverty is NOT necessary. (It is embarrassing to still have to say that in 2017.) We have proven minority schools with adequate resources can do as well or better than any other schools, especially if the students are grounded in their family history and have constantly updated written plans for the future! See recent School Effectiveness Indices scores for Zumwalt and Quintanilla and a report on the Time Capsule Project they are active in. 

Being grounded in history is always a positive to help improve student achievement. The Dallas White flight was preceded by 29 years during which one of the major Confederate Monuments, and all 5 of the DISD Confederate-named schools, appeared. They were attempts to stop integration and preserve a segregated community and school system.

Over 152 years have passed since the Civil War.  Why was it only during the 29 years of the fight to defend legal segregation, just before it was declared illegal, that Confederate names were appearing?  Can anyone believe honor for Civil War Heroes was the main reason?  What happened to that honor before 1927, or since 1956, in Dallas? 

On Sunday 8-6-17 another article by a group wanting all Confederate Monuments destroyed or moved identified an additional 6 names on DISD schools of people who served in the Confederacy in various forms that they think should be changed. That would have made for a total of 11 such schools in DISD, two with the names already changed. I question how many of these additional 6 are identifiable to the public as Confederate Heroes, but this would be a great issue for our students to research and vote on. The potential for this as a learning exercise for our students is very high.

There are people trying to destroy the evidence of the manipulations done with Confederate Monuments instead of adding to these raw evidence from history with a Monument to Education telling more of the entire story. We must use this evidence of abuse in relatively recent times to tell a much more complete Dallas History at the same locations where Confederate Monuments are now. See http://billbetzen.blogspot.com/2017/08/confederate-monuments-as-education.html .

Confederate Monument as a Monument to Education

William Murchison and those arguing to preserve Dallas Confederate monuments are right, but for the wrong reasons. They argue about the value of Civil War History. Any message these monuments have about Civil War History is greatly overshadowed by the message they have about Dallas History. 

The Civil War is only a part of that message. What was happening in Dallas as these Confederate names and memorials were dedicated from 1927 to 1956 is the reason they must be preserved. The issue is education about Dallas History!  These monuments tell the story of the at-times violent struggle as Dallas was pushed toward ending "Separate but Equal." This evidence must not be destroyed or hidden but must be moved out of places of public respect and into museums that can properly tell a very painful history surrounding these statues.  It must be done in an accurate historical context reflecting the suffering they were used to justify and continue.  The rest of Dallas History is reflected in the abusive segregation these monuments were intended to continue!

The first Confederate Monument, and the largest in Dallas, was more definitely a memorial. Many Civil War Veterans were at that 1897 dedication. That was less of a reality at the 1936 dedication of the Lee Statue dedicated within that 29 year period from 1927 to 1956.  This time period was when 5 easily identifiable Confederate names, plus 4 other names of leaders who served in the Confederacy, were given DISD schools. This was allegedly to remember a war that ended in 1865, 62 years before the first Dallas school was given a Confederate name. The same process happened in most southern cities during roughly the same 29 year period leading up to the end of legal segregation. If these were really attempts to honor Civil War heroes across the U.S., why only during this 29 year period out of the last 152 years? 

(On Sunday 8-6-17 the Points section had a front page article titled "Dallas' Confederate memorials scream 'white supremacy'" in the online version, by Professor Michael Phillips and Edward Sebasta.  That article named an additional 6 schools in Dallas whose names I had not noted.  One of those was from 1913, Oran M. Roberts Elementary.  Another was from 1981, John H. Reagan. I question the public identifying all 6 of these names as "Confederate" representatives, though they did serve in the Confederacy.) 

These reminders of Confederate History were used to intimidate minorities in the fight to keep our cities and schools racially segregated. That fight was becoming more intense since the 1909 founding of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the NAACP. Within four years the NAACP was first mentioned in the Dallas Morning News. In 1929 the Dallas Chapter was founded. By the 1950's the NAACP was in the news monthly.

At the same time, opposition to the NAACP thrived. In 1923 the KKK Texas Fair Day set attendance records for any weekday up to that time. That night 6,000 new KKK members joined. In 1927 the first two Confederate-named DISD schools opened: Robert E. Lee Elementary and Sidney Lanier Elementary.

By 1929 KKK membership was declining with the active help of the Dallas Morning News reporting on the violence. Another group was taking over with less violent tactics for the same goal, the Dallas White Citizens Council, now the Dallas Citizens Council.

In 1936 the Robert E. Lee Statue was dedicated. Stonewall Jackson Elementary opened in 1940, Jefferson Davis Elementary opened in 1952 (renamed Barbara Jordan in 1999), and finally John B. Hood opened in 1956 (renamed Piedmont in 2016.).

In 1954 segregation was declared illegal in the Brown vs. Board of Education Court Decision. Using Confederate names and memorials across the US quickly stopped. No new easily recognizable Confederate-named schools can be found as having opened anywhere after 1959. (In Dallas John H. Reagan school was opened in 1981, but how many recognize him as a Confederate hero?)

In 1966 a book titled "Education in Dallas, 1974 to 1966" was published with a very unusual report on the desegregation process in Dallas ISD.  It said on page 159: "Desegregation of the Dallas Schools was accomplished in the course of ten short years with a minimum of commotion and stress. This may be viewed as just short of miraculous."

But as this book was published in 1966 White flight started in Dallas Public Schools. The record 1965 White enrollment of 127,124 dropped by 1,456 in 1966, beginning a 44-year process of loss with the largest loss being over 9,000 White students in 1971. By 2009 White Flight stopped with only 7,207 White students left in DISD. 120,000 White students had left.

During White flight the highest total DISD enrollment was 173,799 in 1970 and the lowest was 127,462 in 1984.

These monuments say much more about the local wars before integration was legally required in Dallas than they ever said about the Civil War. They reflect Dallas leaders fighting to preserve a segregated Dallas, failing, and the White flight that followed.

Now within a decade of White flight ending there are plans to move, change, or otherwise hide the Confederate memorials and names. It is like covering up all the “Colored Only” signs at the water fountains in the Records Building. It is hiding the heritage of abuse too many in Dallas are still forced to suffer, either as perpetrator or victim. Some want to lie about it and claim it never happened. Others are angry about those lies. Either way, we are suffering.

Denial is not the way to heal. Hiding Confederate memorials is not the way to heal. Both the monuments and the name changing process in our schools can become roads to education and healing.

Students in every Confederate-named school should first vote about the name change. This is a learning opportunity. Students must know the segregated schools these names were intended to defend. A super-majority of 80% of students should be required before the name can change. Until then the lesson has not been learned. Do not rush name changes. This will be a lesson that students study over several years. They will remember what a super-majority is also.

This is also an opportunity for students to study history. On Sunday 8-6-17 the Points section had a front page article titled "Dallas' Confederate memorials scream 'white supremacy'" in the online version, by Professor Michael Phillips and Edward Sebasta. It was an excellent article about the true meaning of these memorials. That article named an additional 6 schools in Dallas whose names I had not noted.  One of those was from 1913, Oran M. Roberts Elementary.  Another was from 1981, John H. Reagan. I question the public identifying all 6 of these names as "Confederate" representatives, though they did serve in the Confederacy, but this would be an excellent issue for our students to form opinions on and vote about as they get to know the people for whom their school was named after. 

At the Confederate Monuments Dallas must allow historians and artists to compete to show a more complete Dallas Civil Rights History. It is overdue! New monuments must interact with the old, affirming progress made against segregation. The ongoing equality struggle must be shown as both victorious and still active. History is the best tool. Dates and facts must be posted at the monument that are not yet well known in our history but that clearly indicate these truths.

(I no longer agree with much of what I have written here, especially what follows.  I had underestimated the continuing racism in Dallas that was more than blatantly obvious at hearings and public gatherings I participated in since writing this. Sadly I was one of the first speakers in a City Council meeting and then sat to listen to 50 additional speakers. By the time the last speaker spoke I realized I had been blatantly wrong!  The statues MUST come down. NOW!  At gatherings near the Lee statue I also had some in the crowd speak with me not knowing me and presuming all Whites were blatantly racist. I could say nothing but should have. I never realized how protective living 43 years in South Oak Cliff had been.)

Is Dallas strong enough to post more dates and facts from this painful time on a new Monument to Education near the Lee Statue on an identical, but taller, base in Lee Park?  

An integrated 6^th grade class and their teacher, identical in design to the Lee statue but 20% larger in scale, would be standing on the new monument base looking at the Lee statue.  The Black male teacher appears to be speaking, maybe about history.  The gaze of General Lee would be focused on a Black male student in the class. The teacher would be looking down at Lee and gesturing toward him respectfully.

Reverend Peter Johnson, the organizer assigned to Dallas by Dr. Martin Luther King in the 1960’s, has agreed to allow his image to be used as the teacher. He is now teaching a Dallas Civil Rights class at UNT-Dallas.

The focus by Robert E. Lee on the Black male student in the Monument to Education would affirm the sentiment Mr. Murchison wrote about regarding the healing Lee sought after the Civil War.