TIPHC Newsletter, July 15-21, 2018

Abner Haynes and Lester Hayes highlight inductees for the 2018 PVILCA honors banquet

(Photo: Abner Haynes starred at Dallas Lincoln High School and integrated the football program at North Texas State before becoming an All-Pro running back in the American Football League.)

                         Lester Hayes

All-Pro cornerback Lester Hayes and running back Abner Haynes, the first Player of the Year in the American Football League, lead the lineup of former Prairie View Interscholastic League players and coaches who will be inducted to the PVIL Coaches Association Hall of Fame and Hall of Honor Saturday at the Hyatt Regency Riverwalk  in San Antonio.

Ninety-four inductees will be honored during the PVILCA’s 38th annual banquet which is expected to draw a thousand attendees, most of who have ties to Texas’s black high schools during segregation. The PVILCA is dedicated to preserving the history of the athletic programs of those schools by recognizing their outstanding players and coaches. The league folded in 1970 because of integration and merged with the University Interscholastic League.

The PVIL was first organized in 1920 at Prairie View College as the Texas Interscholastic League of Colored Schools.

“We had a wealth of talented players and coaches, but because of the times, the great majority of them received very little recognition at the high school level,” said Robert Brown (LaMarque Lincoln), PVILCA director. “Many of the players didn’t gain recognition until their college or pro careers. While we recognize guys that many fans might easily recognize, the bulk of our inductees were unnoticed outside of their local black communities, so we’re really proud to give those guys the honors they earned and deserve.”

Haynes attended Lincoln High School in Dallas and then, in 1956 with Leon King, also a Lincoln product, integrated the football program at North Texas State in Denton. Haynes set several records at North Texas and was chosen in the fifth round of the AFL draft by the Dallas Texans. He was the league’s 1960 Rookie of the Year as well as the AFL’s leading rusher and eventually a four-time All-Pro. The Texans relocated to Kansas City as the Chiefs and Haynes was a member of their SB III winning squad.

Hayes was a five-time Pro Bowler with the Oakland/Los Angeles Raiders and is recognized as one of the best shut down corners in NFL history. He played on the Raiders’ Super Bowl (XV and XVIII) championship teams, was the league’s 1980 Defensive Player of the Year, and was named to the NFL’s 1980s All-Decade Team. Hayes was a standout at Phillis Wheatley High School in Houston and at Texas A&M, where he played linebacker.

Texas African American Museum opens doors in Tyler

Gloria Washington, co-founder of the Texas African American Museum. (Photo: J. Edward Moreno/Tyler Morning Telegraph)

(Tyler Morning Telegraph) Tucked behind isles of antiques and artisan goods in the back right corner of Unique Shopping Mall on 2822 W Erwin St, is the temporary home of the Texas African American Museum.

The museum showcases successes and milestones within the African American community in Texas and East Texas specifically. Ancient African art and poll tax receipts from Smith County can be found in the quaint, one-room facility.

Clarence Shackelford, co-founder of the museum, said he was inspired to open the museum after realizing that he “never saw any remnants of (his) ancestors in this county.”

“A lot of our history wasn’t documented, just because that’s the way things were,” he said. (more)

TIPHC Bookshelf

Published 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, “My Life and Battles,” by Jack Johnson.

African American historian Gerald Early refers to Jack Johnson (1878-1946), the first African American heavyweight champion of the world, as the first African American pop culture icon. Johnson is a seminal and iconic figure in the history of race and sport in America. This manuscript is the translation of a memoir by Johnson that was published in French, has never before been translated, and is virtually unknown. Originally published as a series of articles in 1911 and then in revised form as a book in 1914, it covers Johnson’s colorful life and battles, both inside and outside the ring, up until and including his famous defeat of Jim Jeffries in Reno, on July 4, 1910.

In addition to the fights themselves, the memoir recounts, among many other things, Johnson’s brief and amusing career as a local politician in Galveston, Texas; his experience hunting kangaroos in Australia; and his epic bouts of seasickness. It includes portraits of some of the most famous boxers of the 1900-1915 era—such truly legendary figures as Joe Choynski, Jim Jeffries, Sam McVey, Bob Fitzsimons, Philadelphia Jack O’Brien, and Stanley Ketchel. Johnson comments explicitly on race and the color line in boxing and in American society at large in ways that he probably would not have in a publication destined for an American reading public. The text constitutes genuinely new, previously unavailable material and will be of great interest for the many readers intrigued by Jack Johnson. In addition to providing information about Johnson’s life, it is a fascinating exercise in self-mythologizing that provides substantial insights into how Johnson perceived himself and wished to be perceived by others. Johnson’s personal voice comes through clearly-brash, clever, theatrical, and invariably charming. The memoir makes it easy to see how and why Johnson served as an important role model for Muhammad Ali and why so many have compared the two.

This Week in Texas Black History

Jul 15

Forest Whitaker, actor, producer, and director, was born on this day in 1961 in Longview. At age four, he moved with his family to Los Angeles. Whitaker was a star tackle at Palisades High School and received college football scholarship offers, however, after suffering a back injury he began to study opera and acting.  In 1982, he made his film debut in the comedy Fast Times at Ridgemont High, but his breakout role came in 1988 portraying jazz legend Charlie Parker, in the Clint Eastwood film, Bird, for which Whitaker earned the Cannes Film Festivalaward for Best Actor and a Golden Globe nomination. His first directing effort was the film Waiting to Exhale in 1995, and in 2006 was widely lauded for his role as Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in the movie The Last King of Scotland. For that, Whitaker earned the 2007 Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role, making him the fourth African-American actor to do so, joining Sidney Poitier, Denzel Washington, and Jamie Foxx. That same year, Whitaker played Dr. James Farmer Sr. in The Great Debaters, the movie about the acclaimed Wiley College debate team of the 1930s and its coach, Melvin Tolson.

Jul 16

On this date in 1929, Wilhelmina Delco was born in Chicago. Delco received a degree in sociology from Fisk University in Nashville in 1950 and seven years later relocated with her husband to Austin. Delco was elected to the Austin Independent School District Board of Trustees in 1968, making her the first African American elected to public office in Austin. In 1974, she won a seat in the Texas House of Representatives, making her the first African American official elected at-large in Travis County. Delco served 10 terms in the Legislature. In 1991, she was appointed Speaker Pro Tempore, becoming the first woman and the second African American to hold the second highest position in the Texas Houseof Representatives. She retired from the Legislature in 1995.

Jul 20

On this day in 1910, Galveston native Jack Johnson was recognized as the heavyweight champion of the world. He had won the Negro heavyweight championship in 1903. The reigning white champion, Jim Jeffries, refused to cross the color line, so Johnson had to wait until Jeffries came out of retirement to fight him in 1910. Johnson left the United States in 1913 to avoid arrest on charges of violation of the Mann Act. When he returned on July 20, 1920, he was arrested and jailed at Leavenworth. After his release he returned to boxing, but without success. He died in an automobile crash at Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1946.

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 editors before beginning your research/writing.

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