PVAMU African-American studies initiative awarded $1M in grants and gifts

(PVAMU) The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded Prairie View A&M University a grant of $500,000 to support its effort to establish an African-­American Studies Initiative which will be housed in its Marvin D. and June Samuel Brailsford College of Arts and Sciences. Inspired by the Mellon Foundation award, an anonymous donor pledged an added $250,000 to help fund this Initiative. This generous donation is eligible for a $250,000 university match, bringing the total support for the Initiative’s launch to $1 million.

The project, Enhancing the Humanities at PVAMU Through An African-‐American Studies Program Initiative, is designed to selectively infuse African-­American Studies content throughout the university’s liberal arts offerings. The initial concept for the program was conceived when Prairie View President Ruth J. Simmons called for the creation of an African-­‐American Studies program in her first campus-­wide address. Having directed Afro‐American Studies at Princeton and Chaired the African­‐American Studies Department Visiting Committee at Harvard, President Simmons expressed surprise and disappointment that, given the University’s cultural legacy, it did not have a formal program in African-­American Studies. (more)

Texas African-American inventor Ned Barnes revolutionized the railroad industry

Ned Barnes

(Houston Chronicle) Despite having only a fifth-grade education, Ned Eastman Barnes’ inventions revolutionized the railroad industry in the very early 1900s.

In 1905, Barnes, of Willis, applied for and received 10 patents on inventions, including a sand band to protect the hubs of wagon wheels and a pole, post and tree protector.

He also created a brace to maintain the distance between the train rails, an electric projector to display train arrival and departure time, a railway tie plate and a hot-box cooler and oiler.

But despite his long career as an inventor his family maintained a home in Willis and at Antioch Missionary Baptist Church.

He and his wife sent three of their sons to Prairie View College. (more)

Students to Texas: ‘We are trying to fight for the truth and the honest history’

fort worth students

(Fort Worth Star-Telegram) Sometimes learning about history means changing the course.

That’s a message four Fort Worth high school students took to Austin when they told the State Board of Education they want more African-American and Hispanic representation in Texas’ social studies curriculum. They also offered their views on a course in Mexican American studies.

“Teach our history the same way you teach other people’s history,” said Dontavious Sims, 17, a senior at Fort Worth’s Young Men’s Leadership Academy who testified this week. (more)

Photo: Fort Worth students were among people who traveled to Austin this week to ask the State Board of Education to include more African American and Hispanic history in Texas’ social studies curriculum. Kyrone Monta Kimble, Cain Trevino and Miguel Argumedo are pictured here with Georgina Perez, a member of the State Board of Education. (Courtesy Gerardo Contreras)

The Archives of Historic Black Newspapers Are Going Digital

The Obsidian Collection is collaborating with Google Arts & Culture to ensure the journalism is preserved for many years to come

Defender digital

Harold Washington, the first black mayor of Chicago chats to Congressional candidate Charles Hayes. The woman on Washington’s right, who was cropped out of the photo, is Carol Moseley Braun; she would go on to become the first African-American woman ever elected to the U.S. Senate. (The Obsidian Collection)

(Smithsonian.com) Within a decade of the Chicago Defender’s founding in 1905, Robert Sengstacke Abbott’s weekly had become the most influential black newspaper in the United States. It helped fuel the Great Migration, campaigned for anti-lynching legislation and offered vital coverage of the 1919 Chicago Race Riot. Now, as Adrienne Samuels Gibbs of Chicago magazine reports, digital archivists for the black legacy press are teaming up with Google Arts & Culture to ensure that the Defender’s journalism is preserved for many years to come.

The effort is part of a larger plan to digitize the archives of black newspapers from across the country: the Dallas Post Tribune, the Washington Informer, the Afro American, and many others.

The project got its start when Angela Ford went looking through the archive of the Defender for clippings of her grandmother, a 1950s businesswoman often written about in the paper. Cara Giaimo of Atlas Obscura reports that when Ford found the archives “in bad shape,” it spurred her to found the Obsidian Collection to start digitizing the images for everyone to use. (more)

TIPHC Bookshelf

King of RagtimePublished 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, “King of Ragtime, Scott Joplin and His Era,” by Edward A. Berlin.

When it was first published in 1994, “King of Ragtime: Scott Joplin and his Era” was widely heralded not only as the most thorough investigation of Scott Joplin’s life and music, but also as a gripping read, almost a detective story. This new and expanded edition-more than a third larger than the first-goes far beyond the original publication in uncovering new details of the composer’s life and insights into his music. It explores Joplin’s early, pre-ragtime career as a quartet singer, a period of his life that was previously unknown. The book also surveys the nature of ragtime before Joplin entered the ragtime scene and how he changed the style.

Author Edward A. Berlin offers insightful commentary on each of all of Joplin’s works, showing his influence on other ragtime and non-ragtime composers. He traces too Joplin’s continued music studies late in life, and how these reflect his dedication to education and probably account for the radical changes that occur in his last few rags. And he puts new emphasis on Joplin’s efforts in musical theater, bringing in early versions of his Ragtime Dance and its precedents. Joplin’s wife Freddie is shown to be a major inspiration to his opera Treemonisha, with her family background and values being reflected in that work. Joplin’s reputation faded in the 1920s-30s, but interest in his music slowly re-emerged in the 1940s and gradually built toward a spectacular revival in the 1970s, when major battles ensued for possession of rights.

This Week in Texas Black History

Sept 17

Rube FosterRube Foster, known as the “Father of Black Baseball,” was born on this day in 1879 in Calvert. Foster was a pitcher (right-handed), manager, and team owner who started his career at age 18 with the semi-pro Waco Yellow Jackets. In 1920, Foster led the founding of baseball’s first successful all-black league, the Negro National League, headquartered in Kansas City, Mo. Foster was league president, as well as manager and pitcher for the powerful Chicago American Giants. The NNL had teams in the South and Midwest. Some of the Texas teams affiliated with the NNL and other all-black baseball associations were: Austin Black Senators, Fort Worth Black PanthersHouston Eagles, San Antonio Black Bronchos, San Antonio Black Indians. Foster was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1981.

Sept 18

Scott Joplin

On this day in 1899, a copyright was registered for Scott Joplin‘s “Maple Leaf Rag.” The Texarkana native’s ragtime composition for piano is his best-known piece. More than a million copies of the tune’s sheet music were sold encouraging the publication of hundreds of similar pieces as a ragtime craze swept the country. Joplin’s piece was the genre’s biggest hit and became the model for ragtime compositions. The name of the tune was derived from the Sedalia, Mo. social club, the Maple Leaf, where Joplin played. The piece gave Joplin a steady if unspectacular income for the rest of his life. Listen to the song here.

Sept 19

Abner Haynes

Former Dallas Texans and Kansas City Chiefs running back Abner Haynes was born on this day in 1937 in Denton. In 1956, Haynes and Leon King became the first African-American student athletes at North Texas State College (now North Texas State University). In 1960, Haynes, a graduate of Dallas Lincoln High School, joined the Texans in the first season for the American Football League and led the league in rushing attempts, yards, and TDs in its first year and was the league’s first Player of the Year and Rookie of the Year. Haynes had an eight-year career and still owns several Chiefs’ franchise records. His 12,065 combined yards is the AFL record.

Sept 19

Joe Morgan

On this day in 1943, baseball player Joe Morgan was born in Bonham. A second baseman, Morgan grew up in Oakland, Calif. In 22 seasons in Major League Baseball, Morgan had 2,517 hits, 268 home runs, 1,133 RBIs, 1,650 runs, 689 stolen bases, and a .271 batting average. His 266 home runs as a second baseman broke Rogers Hornsby‘s record for most home runs by a player at that position. In 1965, Morgan’s first full season in the majors, he was named the NL Rookie of the Year for the Houston Astros; he hit 14 home runs, scored 100 runs, and had a .271 batting average. With the Cincinnati Reds, Morgan made the All-Star team during each of his eight seasons and received five Gold Gloves for fielding excellence. He was NL MVP in 1975 and 1976 when he led the Reds to back-to-back World Series championships. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1990.

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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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 Michael Hurd, Director of TIPHC, at mdhurd@pvamu.edu.