The ugly truth about the White House and its history of slavery

Michelle Obama’s speech during the first day of the Democratic National Convention was generally lauded. One sentence in particular garnered more attention, and controversy, than the rest:

“That is the story of this country, the story that has brought me to this stage tonight, the story of generations of people who felt the lash of bondage, the shame of servitude, the sting of segregation, but who kept on striving and hoping and doing what needed to be done so that today I wake up every morning in a house that was built by slaves.”

The mention of slavery was a stark reminder for those who may have forgotten the White House’s disturbing history or for those whose associate the iconic home with freedom and not the misery created in its absence.

Clarence Lusane, author of “The Black History of the White House,” isn’t one of those people.

The chair of Howard University’s Political Science Department, Lusane has done extensive research on the enslaved people who built the structure and later lived among 10 of the United States’ first 12 presidents.

He called the first lady’s comment a “pivotal moment” in U.S. history. (read more)

     Related: “Yes, Slaves Did Help Build the White House.”


Pioneering ballet dancer proves her point(e)

debra austinDebra Austin of the Carolina Ballet was the first African-American woman to become a principal dancer with a major American ballet company, but it won’t be her beribboned slippers on display at the National Museum of African American History and Culture when it opens in Washington, D.C., in September.

Instead, the museum has the pointe shoes of Lauren Anderson, who became a principal dancer for the Houston Ballet eight years after Austin achieved the title at the Pennsylvania Ballet.

The story of how Anderson’s shoes are getting the spotlight – and why, for a while, the museum thought Anderson held claim to Austin’s distinction – is proof of the tenacity of an error once it hits the internet, and an indicator of how hard it can be for African-Americans to have their history accurately told. (Read more)


Photos That Challenge Stereotypes About African-American Youths

childrenIn “Double Exposure,” a series of small books published by the Smithsonian’s soon-to-open National Museum of African American History and Culture, the complexities and nuances of African-American life suffuse images made from the medium’s birth right through today. “Picturing Children,” the fourth volume published in association with D. Giles Limited, features some 50 images from the museum’s growing collection of more than 20,000 photographs. These pictures resonate with the joy, contentment, resistance, determination, dissent and the routines of everyday life.

Through images and words by photographers and writers, black and white, “Picturing Children” challenges the stereotype of the broken black family and examines the family’s crucial role “in shaping who we are.” (read more)


TIPHC Bookshelf

houston boundPublished scholarship on black history in Texas is growing and we’d like to share with you some suggested readings, both current and past, from some of the preeminent history scholars in Texas and beyond. We invite you to take a look at our bookshelf page — including a featured selection — and check back as the list grows. A different selection will be featured each week. We welcome suggestions and reviews. This week, we offer, “Houston Bound, Culture and Color in a Jim Crow City,” by Tyina Steptoe.

Beginning after World War I, Houston was transformed from a black-and-white frontier town into one of the most ethnically and racially diverse urban areas in the United States. Houston Bound draws on social and cultural history to show how, despite Anglo attempts to fix racial categories through Jim Crow laws, converging migrations—particularly those of Mexicans and Creoles—complicated ideas of blackness and whiteness and introduced different understandings about race. This migration history also uses music and sound to examine these racial complexities, tracing the emergence of Houston’s blues and jazz scenes in the 1920s as well as the hybrid forms of these genres that arose when migrants forged shared social space and carved out new communities and politics.


Black History Briefs

July 26, 1848: Abolitionist Frederick Douglass was the only man to play a key role at the inaugural Woman’s Rights Convention at Seneca Falls, New York. He seconded the motion by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, calling for women to receive the right to vote.

Armed forces desegregation

Armed forces desegregation

July 26, 1948: President Harry Truman issued two executive orders. One instituted fair employment practices in the civilian agencies of the federal government; the other ordered the end of segregation in the armed forces.

July 27, 1967: President Lyndon Johnson appointed a commission to investigate recent civil disorders. By the end of 1967, there had been 59 urban riots.

July 28, 1868: The Fourteenth Amendment was ratified, guaranteeing due process and equal protection to all men in the U.S. over 21, including those who had been enslaved. It was one of three amendments to the Constitution adopted after the Civil War to guarantee the rights of African Americans. The Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery, the Fourteenth granted citizenship to people once enslaved, and the Fifteenth guaranteed black men the right to vote.

July 28, 1917: Up to 10,000 African Americans paraded down Fifth Avenue in silence to protest lynchings in the South and racial violence in the North. The NAACP and Harlem leaders organized the protest as the U.S. was going to fight “for democracy” in World War I. One parade banner read: “Mr. President, why not make America safe for democracy?”

July 30, 1866: African-American men, many of them veterans of the Civil War, were killed in New Orleans when they paraded in favor of suffrage outside the Louisiana Constitutional Convention, which refused to give them the right to vote. More than 40 were killed, and more than 150 were injured in what is remembered as the “New Orleans Massacre.”


This Week In Texas Black History, July 24-30

bigmamathornton25 – Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton, blues singer, died of a heart attack at age 57 on this day in 1984 in a Los Angeles boarding house. Thornton grew up in Montgomery, Ala., but settled in Houston where she started her recording career after being discovered by singer and producer Johnny Otis and working with Houston music mogul Don Robey’s Peacock Records. By the time of Thornton’s death, Otis had become a pastor and in that capacity officiated Thornton’s funeral as many musical artists paid tribute. She was buried in Inglewood Park Cemetery in Los Angeles. Later that year, she was inducted into the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame. Thornton’s 1953 hit, “Hound Dog,” was No. 1 for seven of its 14 weeks on Billboard’s R&B charts. Elvis Presley made it an even bigger hit, and Janis Joplin popularized Thornton’s “Ball and Chain.”

Guillory28 – On this date in 2000, Curtis John Guillory was named Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Beaumont, becoming fifth bishop of the 34-year-old Roman Catholic Diocese of Beaumont and the first African American Catholic bishop in Texas. Guillory was born in Mallet, Louisiana on Sept. 1, 1943, as the oldest of 16 children. He attended Catholic school and entered the seminary of the Society of the Divine Word in Bay St. Louis, Miss., in 1960. He was ordained a priest of the Divine Word Dec. 16, 1972, and he was ordained as the 12th African American bishop in the United States Feb. 19, 1988.

 

Warren McVea30 – On this day in 1946 Warren McVea was born in San Antonio. McVea was arguably the top high school running back in the country when he graduated from Brackenridge High School in 1964. During his senior season, McVea scored 315 points and 46 touchdowns, which was a single-season record for the University Interscholastic League’s largest school classification (4A). In college, “Wondrous Warren”  was the first black player for the University of Houston program and the first to receive a scholarship to a major previously all-white college in Texas. Professionally, he was a fourth-round pick by the Cincinnati Bengals and was a member of the Kansas City Chiefs when they won Super Bowl IV, defeating the Minnesota Vikings. He was inducted into the San Antonio Sports Hall of Fame in 2003 and the UH Hall of Honor in 2004.

 


Blog: Ron Goodwin, author, PVAMU history professor

Ron Good goodwinwin’s bi-weekly blog appears exclusively for TIPHC/TBHPP. Goodwin is a San Antonio native and Air Force veteran. Generally, his column will address contemporary issues in the black community and how they relate to black history. He and the TIPHC/TBHPP staff welcome your comments. His latest blog is, “Who speaks for us? Read it


Submissions Wanted

Historians, scholars, students, lend us your…writings. Help us produce the most comprehensive documentation ever undertaken for the African American experience in Texas. We encourage you to contribute items about people, places, events, issues, politics/legislation, sports, entertainment, religion, etc., as general entries or essays. Our documentation is wide-ranging and diverse, and you may research and write about the subject of your interest or, to start, please consult our list of suggested biographical entries and see submission guidelines. However, all topics must be approved by TIPHC/TBHPP editors before beginning your research/writing.

We welcome your questions or comments via email or telephone – mdhurd@pvamu.edu.