May 15: Memorial service in Waco for Jesse Washington, centennial of horrific lynching

(Warning: This entry contains graphic details.)

One hundred years ago this week, Jesse Washington, an eighteen-year-old African American man, was burned at the stake in Waco. In recent years, a persistent Waco contingent has proposed a historical marker acknowledging what came to be known as the “Waco Horror,” but the effort has been met with considerable opposition.

However, this Sunday, May 15, will mark the 100th anniversary of this atrocity and it will be memorialized by the McLennan County Community Race Relations Coalition at the Bledsoe Miller Recreation Center at 300 N. MLK Blvd at 2:00 pm. The event is open to the public. Waco Mayor Malcom Duncan will read a proclamation officially acknowledging, for the first time in city history, the lynching that brought national attention to Waco.

“The service will acknowledge who we were then, who we are now, and what will be our future,” said Jo Welter, board chairman for the Coalition.

Washington’s descendants will be in attendance and receive a framed copy of the proclamation and an apology for the atrocity from the mayor.

The savageness of Washington’s hanging, dismemberment, and burning ignited national cries for the end of lynchings and is one of the most depraved incidents in U.S. history. On May 8, 1916 a 53-year-old white woman named Lucy Fryar was bludgeoned to death outside her home, seven miles south of the city. The chief and only suspect was Washington, an illiterate farm hand who worked for Lucy and her husband George.

Reported to have anger issues and mental disabilities, Washington allegedly left his cotton plow to get more seed from Mrs. Fryar. As she was measuring cotton seed out, she reportedly scolded him for his harsh treatment of the plow mules and Washington took offense, striking her in the head with a blacksmith’s hammer. He then allegedly raped and killed her.

For his brief trial, the courtroom that had capacity for 500 people was reportedly stuffed with 1,500. The trial began at 10 a.m. and lasted less than an hour as Washington pled guilty, but before the verdict was recorded, a large man in rear of the court room shouted “Get the Nigger.” In seconds the mob was upon Washington, who was secured with a chain, dragged out of the courthouse and taken to a yard next to Waco City Hall. While en route, he was “half-led, half-dragged and pushed all the time,” with members of the mob ripping off his clothes, slicing off one of his ears and several of his fingers, stabbing him repeatedly (up to twenty-five times according to some accounts) and castrating him.

Washington was burned and his charred torso (with flame-severed limbs) was raised high in a tree so Waco citizens could get their picture taken with it.

For more information about Saturday’s event contact Jo_Welter@hotmail.com, phone 254-836-4599.

Suggested readings and links:


Opinion: Black preaching changed the course of this country. What creates that style?

Frank A. Thomas, director of the Ph.D. Program in African American Preaching and Sacred Rhetoric at Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis, writes: “When I was a young adult, I sat in the pew at the funeral services of a close friend in my neighborhood. He had been shot in a robbery at the shoe store where he worked part-time. The loss was as thick as gray fog hanging over the neighborhood as the Rev. L.K. Curry, the African American pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church on the south side of Chicago, rose to deliver the eulogy.

“When he finished preaching, something had changed in my soul. Amazingly, I felt hope.

“His preaching of the word of God had shifted my outlook and perspective. I wondered what he did and how he did it: How did he make the Bible suddenly relevant, fresh, alive and real? How did his words and his delivery alter my reality?

“I have been on a quest ever since to discover the essence of that style of preaching – both the message and the method. The genius of African American preaching, I have learned, can transform not only individual believers but our entire country.” Read his op-ed for The Washington Post.

Thomas is the author of “They Like to Never Quit Praisin’ God: The Role of Celebration In Preaching,” and co-editor of “Preaching With Sacred Fire: An Anthology of African American Sermons, 1750 to the Present.”


“Stars In the Sky”: The first black flight attendants

stars in the skyFrom NBC News: “Casey Grant is a “fly girl” in every sense of the word. She’s beautiful, brown, bodacious and she spent 35 years jet-setting across the globe as a flight attendant for Delta Air Lines. In her heyday, she says flying the friendly skies was glamorous and exclusive and little girls dreamt of being “stewardesses,” models and movie stars all the same (and all of the guys wanted to date them).

“Ms. Grant, 66, enjoyed an illustrious career that allowed her to rub elbows with the elite and travel the world when few others could. However, she says, the lesser-known reality is that many times she and other flight attendants of color were also forced to hold their heads up high as they faced down racial prejudice and discrimination both on the ground and in-flight.

“She’s been retired since 2005 and now lives in Chicago. When she’s not using her lifelong flying privileges to hop a plane to Rome to eat at her favorite restaurant, Grant keeps busy promoting her book, “Stars In The Sky: Stories of the First African American Flight Attendants.” Read her very entertaining interview with NBC News here.


New Database Will Document the Burial Sites of U.S. Slaves

tomb unknown slave

Tomb of the Unknown Slave at St. Augustine Church in New Orleans

A new project is giving slave burial grounds in the United States something they’ve long been deprived of: visibility. The National Burial Database of Enslaved Americans (NBDEA) is a collaboration between the Periwinkle Initiative and Fordham University, with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the 1772 Foundation. It intends “to establish a process of official documentation for burials and burial grounds of enslaved Americans in the United States,” as the NBDEA site states. Read about the project here.

Sandra A. Arnold, director of the NBDEA project: “When the database is completed, it will be the first national repository of information on the grave sites of individuals who died while enslaved or after they were emancipated.”

Related: Why Slave Graves Matter, an op-ed piece by Sandra A. Arnold

 


TIPHC Bookshelf

Victory CourtsPublished 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, “Victory Courts: The Story of Coach Robert Hughes and the PVIL I.M. Terrell Panthers (Volume 1),” by Robin L. Hughes.

Hughes chronicles experiences from the segregated Prairie View Interscholastic League. The book focuses on the life and career of legendary high school basketball coach, Robert L. Hughes, and the direct influence he had on generations of young athletes in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. “Victory Courts” explores historical and socially relevant issues such as the role of family, community, education, and ways that high school and collegiate sports brought dignity and cultural change across the racially segregated Southwest during the 1950s and 1960s.


This Week In Texas Black History, May 8-14, 2016

lovie smith8 – On this day in 1958, Lovie Lee Smith was born in Big Sandy, Texas. In high school, he led the Big Sandy Wildcats to three consecutive state championships and was all-state three years as an end and linebacker. Smith was a two-time All-America and three-time All-Missouri Valley Conference defensive back at the University of Tulsa. As head coach of the Chicago Bears, in 2007, he became the first African-American professional head coach to qualify a team for the Super Bowl when the Bears beat the New Orleans Saints, 39-14, in the NFC championship game. However, the Bears lost in Super Bowl XLI to the Indianapolis Colts, 29-17.

 

 

Barbara_Jordan9 – In 1974, U.S. Rep. Barbara Jordan was among the members of the House Judiciary Committee which opened hearings on whether to recommend the impeachment of President Richard Nixon in the Watergate controversy. On July 25th, Jordan delivered a powerful message to the committee reminding her colleagues of the Constitutional basis for impeachment. Jordan asserted, “My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total. I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution.”

 

 

surles_carol11 – In 1994, Dr. Carol Surles becomes first African-American president of Texas Women’s University in Denton. A native of Florida, Surles earned her undergraduate degree in psychology at Fisk University in Nashville, her master’s degree in counseling from Chapman College in California, and her doctoral degree in education from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor.

 

 

 

Norris_Wright_Cuney12 – On this day in 1846, Norris Wright Cuney was born on a plantation near Hempstead. Cuney was the child of a white planter, Philip Minor Cuney and his slave, Adeline Stuart. Norris was educated at the Wylie Street School for blacks in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He returned to Texas following the Civil War and settled in Galveston, where he became active in the Union League, the political arm of Radical Republican Reconstruction in Texas. Cuney became a powerful figure in Texas’ Republican circles, especially in Galveston and was appointed secretary of the Republican State Executive Committee in 1873, the highest party rank achieved by a Southern African American in the remaining decades of the century. In 1886, he was named the Republican Party’s national committeeman from Texas.

 

roberthughes15 Robert Hughes, the most successful high school basketball coach in Texas history, was born this day in 1928 in Bristow, Oklahoma. After a tour in the U.S. Army during the Korean Conflict, Hughes played college basketball at Texas Southern University, gaining acclaim as a prolific scorer.  In 1958, he became head coach at Fort Worth’s segregated high school I.M. Terrell. During his 16 years there (1958-1973), Hughes’ teams compiled a 373-84 record and won three Prairie View Interscholastic League (PVIL) state championships (1963, 1965 & 1967). The PVIL was the governing body for academic and athletic competitions for Texas’ African American high schools. With integration of public schools during 1973, Hughes became coach at Fort Worth Dunbar High School, where he remained until he retired in 2005.  During his tenure at Dunbar, the “Flying Wildcats” won two state championships (1993 & 2003), and on three occasions finished second in the state. His teams made thirty consecutive trips to the state championship, and only had one losing season. (Video interview)


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, “Youthful Indiscretions.” 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, .