Legends reflect on how Corpus Christi led way to integrate high school football in Texas

Miller Bucs star Bobby Smith and others from the Corpus Christi area helped lead the way to integrating high school football in Texas

(Corpus Christi Caller-Times) One Saturday morning in the fall of 1959, Bobby Smith would’ve been found walking his way up to a big white house on Santa Fe street. The owner, a man by the name of Colonel Blakely, had heard of Smith’s success playing for the Miller football team as a running back and wanted to meet him.

Inviting him to his home, the Colonel asked, “How many touchdowns you score?” Smith answered three. The Colonel handed Smith $300.

This back and forth continued throughout the season as the Colonel wanted Smith, one of the top running backs in the country, to play for the Michigan Wolverines, one of 61 schools vying for Smith’s commitment.

While Miller missed the playoffs by one game in ‘59, losing the district title 14-10 to rival Ray, who went on to win the Class 4A state championship that year, Smith still made history. Smith became the first black football player to be named to the Texas Sports Writers Association all-state first team in Texas high school football history.

This year marks the 60th anniversary of Smith receiving that honor.

“It really didn’t mean that much to me at the time,” said Smith, 77. “I was the first in a lot. I got along with everybody at Miller. My senior class we had about eight or nine blacks and back in those days Miller was a huge school because you had just Miller and Ray. I was class favorite, I got voted class favorite, I got to know it didn’t make me no different.”

Smith may have broke a barrier in Texas but his experience was not uncommon in the Coastal Bend. From Refugio to Robstown and from Kingsville to downtown Corpus Christi, South Texas helped lead the way with integration in the late 50s following Brown vs. Board of Education’s landmark ruling that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. (more)

Related: “The game desegregating college football in the South happened 50 years ago”  — On Nov. 29, 1969, the all-black team of Florida A&M took on the virtually all-white team of the University of Tampa before a crowd of 45,000.


100-year-old home in historic Fort Worth African-American community preserved

100-year-old home_Fort Worth(Fort Worth Star-Telegram) As a child growing up in Historic Southside in the 1950s, Wanda Perry would fling open their windows and shout at the top of her lungs whenever she had to get the attention of her cousins or family friends.

Her parent’s childhood pals whom she knew as aunt and uncle resided in the home right next door, while five cousins and other relatives were in the house behind theirs. Wanda, an only child raised by her parents and her grandparents, would shout at them when it was time to run over for a home-cooked meal or a lavish party. Their home, she remembers, was the place to come together, usually with someone playing the piano.

In those days, Wanda, 69, said there was a sense of “togetherness” around the Fort Worth community filled with the African-American elites of the day like doctors and lawyers. The area was known among residents as “Bill McDonald’s Neighborhood,” named for Texas’ first black millionaire, who would buy up properties to sell them to black families.

The historic neighborhood has changed a lot in the nearly 100 years since the home was built, with many of the aging homes coming down in place of newer ones. But Wanda’s family home — a relic of another era in the history of Fort Worth — is strong as ever, thanks to a family she had never met that wanted to save it. (more)


‘Remnants of history’: Artists preserve Third Ward’s culture through ‘Mini Murals’

Third Ward murals_Watson

Artist Maya Imani Watson poses next to her mini mural on Emancipation Avenue and McGowen Street in the Third Ward on Sunday, Nov. 17, 2019 in Houston. (Photo: Elizabeth Conley, Staff photographer)

(Houston Chronicle) As a child growing up in Historic Southside in the 1950s, Wanda Perry would fling open their windows and shout at the top of her lungs whenever she had to get the attention of her cousins or family friends.

Her parent’s childhood pals whom she knew as aunt and uncle resided in the home right next door, while five cousins and other relatives were in the house behind theirs. Wanda, an only child raised by her parents and her grandparents, would shout at them when it was time to run over for a home-cooked meal or a lavish party. Their home, she remembers, was the place to come together, usually with someone playing the piano.

In those days, Wanda, 69, said there was a sense of “togetherness” around the Fort Worth community filled with the African-American elites of the day like doctors and lawyers. The area was known among residents as “Bill McDonald’s Neighborhood,” named for Texas’ first black millionaire, who would buy up properties to sell them to black families.

The historic neighborhood has changed a lot in the nearly 100 years since the home was built, with many of the aging homes coming down in place of newer ones. But Wanda’s family home — a relic of another era in the history of Fort Worth — is strong as ever, thanks to a family she had never met that wanted to save it. (more)


TIPHC Bookshelf

Doris Miller Pearl HarborPublished 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, “Doris Miller, Pearl Harbor, and the Birth of the Civil Rights Movement,” by Thomas W. Cutrer and T. Michael Parrish.

On the morning of December 7, 1941, after serving breakfast and turning his attention to laundry services aboard the USS West Virginia, Ship’s Cook Third Class Doris “Dorie” Miller heard the alarm calling sailors to battle stations. The first of several torpedoes dropped from Japanese aircraft had struck the American battleship. Miller hastily made his way to a central point and was soon called to the bridge by Lt. Com. Doir C. Johnson to assist the mortally wounded ship’s captain, Mervyn Bennion. Miller then joined two others in loading and firing an unmanned anti-aircraft machine gun—a weapon that, as an African American in a segregated military, Miller had not been trained to operate. But he did, firing the weapon on attacking Japanese aircraft until the .50-caliber gun ran out of ammunition. For these actions, Miller was later awarded the Navy Cross, the third-highest naval award for combat gallantry.

Historians Thomas W. Cutrer and T. Michael Parrish have not only painstakingly reconstructed Miller’s inspiring actions on December 7. They also offer for the first time a full biography of Miller placed in the larger context of African American service in the United States military and the beginnings of the civil rights movement.

Like so many sailors and soldiers in World War II, Doris Miller’s life was cut short. Just two years after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Miller was aboard the USS Liscome Bay when it was sunk by a Japanese submarine. But the name—and symbolic image—of Dorie Miller lived on. As Cutrer and Parrish conclude, “Dorie Miller’s actions at Pearl Harbor, and the legend that they engendered, were directly responsible for helping to roll back the navy’s then-to-fore unrelenting policy of racial segregation and prejudice, and, in the chain of events, helped to launch the civil rights movement of the 1960s that brought an end to the worst of America’s racial intolerance.”


This Week in Texas Black History

Dec. 1

Alvin AileyOn this day in 1989, dancer and choreographer Alvin Ailey died in New York City of blood dyscrasia. Ailey, a native or Rogers, Texas, founded his namesake dance theater in 1958. A native of Rogers (Bell County), Ailey made his Broadway debut in 1954 and in 1958 gained his first critical success for his choreography for Blues Suite, which also marked the beginning of the Alvin Ailey Dance Company. His troupe, in 1970, became the first American dance company to tour the USSR in 50 years and received a 20-minute ovation for their performance in Leningrad.

Dec. 1

Charles BrownOn this day in 1956, Charles Brown became the first black athlete to participate in a major college sport in Texas when he suited up for Texas Western College (now Univ. of Texas at El Paso), 10 years before John Westbrook at Baylor and Jerry LeVias at Southern Methodist University broke the color line for the Southwest Conference in September 1966. Brown had attended predominantly black Douglass High School in El Paso, served in the Air Force during the Korean War then attended Amarillo Junior College before he and his nephew, Cecil, joined Texas Western. In his debut, Brown scored 16 points and, according to the El Paso Times, “dazzled the crowd” as the Miners beat New Mexico Western 73-48. Though only 6-foot-1, from 1956-1959, Brown led the Border Conference in scoring and rebounding. He concluded his career with 1,170 points and 578 rebounds, averaging 17.5 points and 8.6 rebounds. Brown was inducted into the El Paso Athletic Hall of Fame in 1999 and the UTEP Athletic Hall of Fame in 2008. On March 2, 2011, UTEP hung Brown’s jersey No. 25 in the rafters. On Sunday, May 11, 2014, Brown passed away in Antioch, California at the age of 83.

Dec. 1

James CashJames Cash becomes the first African American to play basketball in the Southwest Conference on this day in 1966 when Texas Christian University opened its season at Oklahoma, losing 90-76. Cash had starred at Fort Worth I.M. Terrell High School playing for legendary coach Robert Hughes. Cash graduated from Terrell in 1965, but because of the NCAA’s freshmen ineligible rule, would not take the court for TCU until 1966. In his first season, 1966-67, Cash started at forward and averaged 11.5 points, and led the team in rebounds with 266. The team would finish the season 10-14 overall, 8-6 in the SWC (second place). However, Cash would help lead the team to a conference championship and NCAA Tournament (first round loss) the next season. An Academic All-American, Cash received a degree in math and later a master’s and Ph.D. from Purdue University and would become a full-time professor and then Dean of the MBA Program at the Harvard Business School (and the school’s first tenured black professor). Cash served on various corporate boards including MicrosoftGeneral Electric, and Wal-Mart and became part owner of the NBA Boston Celtics.

Dec. 1

ClarksvilleOn this day in 1976, the Clarksville neighborhood in Austin was added to National Register of Historic Places. Clarksville was originally the location of slave quarters for a plantation outside of Austin owned by Texas Governor Elisha M. Pease who gave the land to his emancipated slaves. Freedman Charles Clark established the community in 1871 and subdivided the land among other freedmen.

Dec. 5

Kenny DorhamOn this day in 1972, Austin musician Kenny Dorham died of kidney failure at age 48 in New York City. Dorham was one of the great trumpet pioneers of the bebop era, and worked with many of the bebop giants in the ’40s and ’50s, including Dizzy Gillespie, Billy EckstineLionel Hampton, and Thelonious Monk.

Dec. 5

Bill PickettWillie M. “Bill” Pickett, the cowboy known as the “Dusky Demon” and inventor of the rodeo sport of bulldogging (steer wrestling), was born on this day in 1870 in Taylor, northeast of Austin. In 1971, Pickett was the first black man elected to the National Cowboy Hall of Fame and Western Heritage Center in Oklahoma. In 1993, the U.S. Postal Service honored him as part of its Legends of the West series of stamps.

Dec. 6

13th amendmentThe 13th Amendment, abolishing slavery, was ratified by three-fourths of the states on this day in 1865, officially becoming part of the U.S. Constitution. The amendment declared that “neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” However, when the newly elected 11th Texas Legislature met in August 1866, the members refused to ratify either the 13th or 14th Amendment (granting citizenship to African Americans). The legislature wanted to return Texas as much as possible to the way it was before the war and restrict the rights of African Americans. Texas would not ratify the 13th amendment until February 18, 1870. Mississippi would be the last state to comply, ratifying the amendment in 1995, but the state didn’t officially notify the U.S. Archivist until 2012, when the ratification finally became official.

Dec. 7

Julius carterPublisher Julius Carter was born this day in 1914 in Houston. Carter founded the Forward Times newspaper in 1960 when segregation was in full force in Houston. Carter realized his vision of the Forward Times becoming a voice for the city’s African-American community.

Dec. 7

Comer Cottrell

Philanthropist and founder of Pro-Line Corporation, maker of black hair products, Comer Cottrell, Jr., was born on this day in 1931 in Mobile, Alabama. Cottrell founded Pro-Line in Los Angeles in 1970, but relocated the business to Dallas in 1980. Pro-Line became the largest black-owned firm in the Southwest and one of the most profitable black companies in the United States. He is noted for popularizing the “Jheri curl” hairstyle. Cottrell became part owner of Texas Rangers baseball team in 1989, becoming the first African-American to hold such a stake in a Major League Baseball team and was also the first black member of the powerful Dallas Citizens Council.

Dec. 7

Doris Miller

On this day in 1941, Navy messman Doris Miller, a Waco native was aboard the USS West Virginia when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Miller moved several wounded sailors to safety and then manned an anti-aircraft gun, for which he had no training (because the Navy limited black sailors to non-combat roles and menial duties), and fired at attacking planes. For his actions, Miller was the first African-American to be awarded the Navy’s second highest honor, the Navy Cross.


Blog: Ron Goodwin, Ph.D., author, PVAMU history professor

Ron Goodwin is an assistant professor of history at Prairie View A&M University. Even though he was a military “brat,” he still considers San Antonio home. Like his father and brother, Ron joined the U.S. Air Force and while enlisted received his undergraduate degree from Texas Lutheran University in Seguin, Texas. After his honorable discharge, he completed graduate degrees from Texas Southern University. Goodwin’s book, Blacks in Houston, is a pictorial history of Houston’s black community. His most recent book, Remembering the Days of Sorrow, examines the institution of slavery in Texas from the perspective of the New Deal’s Slave Narratives.

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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 editors before beginning your research/writing.

We welcome your questions or comments. Please contact Michael Hurd, Director of TIPHC, at mdhurd@pvamu.edu.