The Complexities of Slavery in the Nation’s Capital

Image: In this drawing from around 1815, the enslaved pass the United States Capitol wearing shackles and chains. (Library of Congress)

(The White House Historical Association) For the first seventy-two years of its existence, the nation’s capital, Washington, D.C., harbored one of America’s most difficult historical truths and greatest contradictions: slavery. The city’s placement along the Potomac River, in between the slave states of Maryland and Virginia, ensured that slavery was ingrained into every aspect of life, including the buildings, institutions, and social fabric of Washington, D.C. Enslaved workers contributed to public building projects, were bought and sold within the boundaries of the city, and served many of the men who founded the nation. Slavery was alive and well in the

In June 1790, Secretary of State sat down to dinner with Virginia Congressman and Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton. By the end of the evening, these men had agreed upon a new location for the United States capital. Prior to this dinner, a debate on its location divided members of the fledgling government. Hamilton and his supporters believed the capital should be in New York City, while others preferred Philadelphia or a location along the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania. Southerners like Jefferson and Madison favored a location along the Potomac River, fearing that a northern capital would diminish southern power, undermine slavery, and encourage corruption among bankers, merchants, and creditors. That night, according to Jefferson’s recollections, the three agreed to place the capital along the Potomac in exchange for the federal assumption of states’ war debts from the American Revolution.

On July 16, 1790, Congress passed the Residence Act, moving the capital from New York to Philadelphia for ten years’ time and then permanently to the “river Potomack.”

By placing the seat of government firmly in the South, this legislation allowed slavery to flourish in the new capital. After President George Washington signed the Residence Act into law, he took an active role overseeing the construction of the . Working with French-born engineer Pierre (Peter) Charles L’Enfant, he selected a building site near his Mount Vernon estate at the confluence of the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers.

To establish this new Federal City, Maryland ceded about seventy square miles, while Virginia contributed around twenty.

President Washington also appointed three commissioners in January 1791 to manage city construction: Thomas Johnson, David Stuart, and Daniel Carroll.

All three men owned slaves. (more)


The Unmistakable Black Roots of ‘Sesame Street’

Celebrating its 50th anniversary, the beloved children’s television show was shaped by the African-American communities in Harlem and beyond

sesame street

“Sesame Street” was intentional in making its cast racially diverse and its fictional neighborhood integrated. (Hulton Archive via Getty Images)

(Smithsonian) Forty years ago, upon the tenth anniversary of the debut of “Sesame Street,” the New York Times offered an appraisal of the revolutionary children’s television program, reminding readers that the show with universal appeal initially declared its target audience, “the four-year old inner-city black youngster.” This year, as the show commemorates its 50th anniversary and is broadcast in more than 150 countries, it’s worthwhile to take a look back at how since its inception, “Sesame Street” has been rooted in African-American culture, more specifically the historically black community of Harlem. The New York City neighborhood played such an outsized role in the development of the program—from set design to casting and marketing—the answer to the question from the “Sesame Street” opening song, “Can you tell me how to get to Sesame Street,” ought to be Duke Ellington’s “Take the A Train.”

“Sesame Street” arose from the Lyndon B. Johnson administration’s Great Society agenda, a series of federal programs that carried the ambitious goal of eliminating poverty and racial injustice. As part of these aspirations, Johnson, who had taught poor Mexican-American children while a student in college, created Head Start in 1965, seeking to disrupt the multi-generational cycle of poverty through early education programs for disadvantaged preschool children.

Joan Ganz Cooney, the creator of “Sesame Street,” said in a 1998 interview that a documentary she produced on the Harlem pre-school program that would become Head Start led her to “become absolutely involved intellectually and spiritually with the Civil Rights Movement and with the educational deficit that poverty created.” Soon thereafter, she teamed up with her friend Lloyd Morrisett, a psychologist and Carnegie Corporation executive, who was looking to back a pre-school education model that could reach a great number of inner-city children. Morrisett secured additional private sector and federal government support, and the Children’s Television Workshop (CTW), the entity that would produce “Sesame Street” among other beloved educational programming, was born. (more)


Academy Names Airfield in Honor of First Black Air Force General

Benjamin Davis

Army Air Forces Col. Benjamin O. Davis Jr., commander of the 332nd Fighter Group, stands in front of his P-51D Mustang in Ramitelli, Italy, in March 1945. (US Army)

(U.S. Dept. of Defense) The U.S. Air Force Academy has named its airfield in honor of Air Force Gen. Benjamin O. Davis Jr., the service’s first black general and the commander of the Tuskegee Airmen in Africa and Europe.

The project to name the previously unnamed airfield was “an incredible journey,” Air Force Academy Superintendent Lt. Gen. Jay B. Silveria said at the naming ceremony.

Davis was “instrumental in driving this institution towards a much more diverse and a much more inclusive population, reducing attrition rates of minorities, and crucial in developing the plan to integrate women at the United States Air Force Academy,” Silveria said.

The son of Army Gen. Benjamin O. Davis Sr., the Army’s first black general, Davis entered the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, in July 1932. Upon his graduation, the Army had two black infantry officers — Davis and his father. (more)


TIPHC Bookshelf

Football at Black Colleges_FinkPublished 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, “Football at Historically Black Colleges and Universities in Texas,” by Rob Fink.

“In Texas, football is king,” Rob Fink writes, “so it provides a prominent window on Texas culture.” In “Football at Historically Black Colleges and Universities in Texas,” Fink opens this window to afford readers an engaging view of not only the sport and its impact on African Americans in Texas, but also a better and more nuanced perception of the African American community, its aspirations, and its self-understandings from Reconstruction to the present. This book focuses on crucial themes of civil rights, personal and group identity, racial pride, and socio-cultural empowerment.

Although others have examined specific institutions, time periods, and rivalries in black college football, this book is the first to feature a broad narrative encompassing an entire state. This wide field of play affords the opportunity to explore the motivations and contexts for establishing football teams at historically black colleges and universities; the institutional and community purposes served by athletic programs; and how these efforts changed over time in response to changes in sport, higher education, and society.

Fink traces the rise of the sport at HBCUs in Texas and the ways it came to symbolize and focus the aspirations of the African American community. He chronicles its decline, ironically due in part to the gains of the civil rights movement and the subsequent integration of black athletes into previously white institutions. Finally, he shows how HBCUs in Texas have survived in the twenty-first century by concentrating on balanced athletic budgets and a carefully honed appeal to traditional rivalries and constituencies.


This Week in Texas Black History

Nov. 10

Hubert LawsRenowned jazz flutist Hubert Laws was born on this day in 1939 in Houston. Laws played in the marching band at Phillis Wheatley High School in Houston then studied music at Texas Southern University before beginning his professional career playing in Houston jazz groups such as the Crusaders. Has played an recorded with numerous artists including Quincy JonesHerbie HancockAretha FranklinElla Fitzgerald, and Leonard Bernstein and was recipient of the 2011 National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters Award and lifetime achievement award from the NEA in the field of jazz.

Nov. 10

Wiley College sealWiley College was founded on this day in 1873 and was the first black college west of the Mississippi River. Named in honor of Bishop Isaac T. Wiley, an outstanding minister, medical missionary and educator, the school opened its doors just south of Marshall, Texas with two frame buildings.

Nov. 11

Captain Norman W. Scales, a Tuskegee Airman and the first licensed black pilot in Austin, was born on this day in 1918. Scales flew 70 missions over enemy territories and earned the Distinguished Flying Cross and certificate of valor.

Nov. 12

James DickeyOn this date in 1893, physician James Lee Dickey was born near Waco. A graduate of Tillotson College (now Huston-Tillotson University) in 1916, he entered Meharry Medical College in Nashville and graduated in 1921. Dickey returned to Texas to help is widowed mother raise his eight siblings and settled in Taylor, northeast of Austin. Dickey was the only black doctor in Williamson County and one of only 130 black doctors in Texas. He established a medical facility that began with a three-bedroom clinic and expanded to a fifteen-bed hospital with modern surgical and obstetrical facilities. The clinic was open to all needy patients — regardless of race — from Williamson, LeeTravisMilamBell and Bastrop counties. Early in his career he also curbed a typhoid fever epidemic in 1932 through a vigorous vaccination program. He became a trustee of Tillotson college and in 1953 was named Taylor’s most outstanding citizen by the chamber of commerce, the first time a black man had been so honored in the community.

Nov. 12

Ken HoustonKen HoustonPro Football Hall of Fame safety, was born on this day in 1944 in Lufkin, Texas. Houston played collegiately at Prairie View A&M, then starred with the Houston Oilers and Washington Redskins. Houston became the National Football League’s premier strong safety of 1970s and was All-Pro or All-AFC/NFC eight of nine years, 1971-1979.

Nov. 13

John WestbrookOn this day in 1947, John Hill Westbrook was born in Groesbeck, Texas. On September 10, 1966, Westbrook, as a running back for Baylor University, became the first black football player to compete in the Southwest Conference when he entered a game in the fourth quarter. His debut came one week before the more celebrated start for Southern Methodist University’s Jerry LeVias.

Nov. 14

Doris PembertonDoris Hollis Pemberton, reporter, civic leader, and author, was born on this day in Nacogdoches, Texas in 1917. Pemberton studied at Texas College and graduated from Texas Southern University. In 1944, as a writer for the Dallas Express, she became the first black reporter to cover a state Democratic convention in Texas. In Houston, during the 1950s, Pemberton helped develop classes for black students in arts, crafts, and science at local museums. She was the author of “Juneteenth at Comanche Crossing.”

Nov. 15

Conrad JohnsonConrad “Prof” Johnson, director of the legendary Kashmere High School Stage Band and one of Houston’s greatest jazz educators, was born on this day in 1915 in Victoria, Texas. Johnson taught in Houston schools for more than 30 years. He created and led the Kashmere band during its heyday in the 1960s and ’70s when it was among the nation’s best, and traveled across the United States and to Europe and Japan. The band won 42 out of 46 contests it entered between 1969 and 1977, and recorded eight albums featuring more than 20 original compositions by Johnson. The band is featured in the documentary, “Thunder Soul.”

Nov. 16

Zina Garrison

On this date in 1963, tennis professional Zina Garrison was born in Houston. In 1990 at Wimbledon, Garrison became the first Black woman since Althea Gibson to reach a Grand Slam final. In 1989, she reached a career high ranking of No. 4 in the world and teamed with Pam Shriver to win an Olympic gold medal in 1988 in doubles competition in Seoul, Korea.

 


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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Football is still football

October 14th, 2019

Since we’re into the football season I thought it was time to interject my two cents. I’ve noticed several teams starting black quarterbacks these days. Some because of injury, but others have been under center since training camp. By my count, the first weekend of the National Football League season in September saw nine African…(more)

1960s Revisited

October 1st, 2019

Over the last few years our society has spent a great amount of energy reliving and analyzing the 1960s. Every event – from the deaths of the Kennedy brothers, MLK and Malcolm X, landing on the moon, war protests, and the hippie revolution – has been scrutinized through the microscope of history. The interesting thing about history’s microscope, though, is that it often blots out the nasty and the ugly. The concept of revisionism centers…(more)


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.