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Prints & Photographs Collection, Heman Sweatt file,
The Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin

In 1946, Heman Marion Sweatt applied for admission to the University of Texas School of Law, which was at the time an all-white institution. Sweatt met all eligibility requirements for admission except for his race. At that time, Article VII, Section 7 of the Texas Constitution read: "Separate schools shall be provided for the white and colored children, and impartial provision shall be made for both." Based on the Texas constitution, the university registrar rejected his application because Sweatt was black and the University of Texas was a segregated institution. With assistance from NAACP counsel, Sweatt sued in state court, requesting that the court require state and university officials to enroll him. The trial judge continued the case to give the state an opportunity to establish a "separate but equal" law school, and a temporary law school was opened in February 1947, known as the School of Law of the Texas State University for Negroes.

At the School of Law of the Texas State University for Negroes, students had access to the Texas Supreme Court library, and several members of the law faculty of the University of Texas School of Law taught classes. After the establishment of the black law school, the state court dismissed Sweatt's case. Sweatt appealed the dismissal of the case to the United States Supreme Court, claiming that the Texas admissions scheme continued to violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Supreme Court ruled that in states where public graduate and professional schools existed for white students but not for black students, black students must be admitted to the all-white institutions, and that the equal protection clause required Sweatt's admission to the University of Texas School of Law. In the summer of 1950, Horace Heath enrolled in the Graduate School of Government and John Chase enrolled in the architecture program at the University of Texas. Heman Marion Sweatt entered law school at the University of Texas in the fall of 1950, as did several other blacks.

The case had a direct impact on the University of Texas because it permitted black applicants to apply to graduate and professional programs. However, black students could only pursue those degrees that were not available from segregated black universities such as Prairie View A&M University and Texas State University for Negroes, now known as Texas Southern University. Since the University of Texas adopted a narrow interpretation of Sweatt, black undergraduate students were not admitted. Graduate students, however, were allowed to enroll in undergraduate courses when necessary for their program.

At the same time the Supreme Court considered the Sweatt case, it reviewed the policies of the University of Oklahoma in McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education. On January 28, 1948, a retired black professor, George McLaurin, applied to the University of Oklahoma to pursue a Doctorate in Education. University authorities were required to deny him admission because of his race under Oklahoma statutes making it a misdemeanor to maintain, operate, teach, or attend a school at which both whites and blacks were enrolled or taught. McLaurin filed a complaint to gain admission. On October 6, the Court for the Western District of Oklahoma found those parts of the Oklahoma statute that denied McLaurin admission unconstitutional, and held that the state had a constitutional duty to provide McLaurin with the education he sought as soon as it provided that education for applicants of any other group. With this ruling the University's Board of Regents voted to admit McLaurin, but on a segregated basis.

On October 13, 1948, McLaurin entered the University. He sat at a designated desk on the mezzanine level of Bizzell Library rather than in the regular reading room, at a desk in an anteroom adjoining Classroom 104 in Carnegie Hall, and ate at a separate time from the white students in the cafeteria. McLaurin once again filed suit, claiming that this segregation violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The Supreme Court unanimously ruled that as a result of McLaurin's segregation he was "handicapped in his pursuit of effective graduate instruction. Such restrictions impair and inhibit his ability to study, to engage in discussions and exchange views with other students, and, in general, to learn his profession."

With Sweatt v. Painter and McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education, the Supreme Court began to overturn the separate but equal doctrine in public education by requiring graduate and professional schools to admit black students.

View Case: Sweatt v. Painter, 339 U.S. 629 (1950)

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Tarlton Law Library: The Papers of Justice Tom C. Clark: Sweatt v. Painter (1950)

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In 1946, Heman Marion Sweatt applied for admission to the University of Texas School of Law, which was at the time an all-white institution. Sweatt met all eligibility requirements for admission except for his race.

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Texas Legislative black caucus Formed(1973)

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Texas Legislative black caucus Formed(1973)

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The Texas Legislative Black Caucus (TLBC) was organized in 1973 by eight African Americans who were elected to the Texas House of Representatives in November of 1972. These eight new state representatives were the largest number of African Americans elected to serve in the Texas legislature since Reconstruction. The founding members of the TLBC were Paul Ragsdale, Sam Hudson III, and Eddie Bernice Johnson from Dallas; Craig Washington, Anthony Hall, Senfronia Thompson, and Mickey Leland from Houston; and G. J. Sutton from San Antonio. These individuals formed the Black Caucus to work cooperatively with the Democratic Party in the interest of the African-American community in Texas. They also sought to work with other legislative caucuses, such as the Mexican American Legislative Caucus, to provide a bloc of votes that would support legislation to improve the quality of life for African Americans in areas such as education, housing, health care, and employment.

From its small beginnings the Texas Legislative Black Caucus has grown in number and influence. In 2013 it had a membership of eighteen legislators who represented Dallas, Houston, Austin, San Antonio, Frisco, and Beaumont. Three years after its founding, the Black Caucus started holding annual conventions to connect with its constituents throughout the state of Texas. In 1993 the Black Caucus upgraded its annual conventions and began hosting the Texas Legislative Black Caucus Weekend, similar to the Congressional Black Caucus Weekend held annually by the African-American members of the United States Congress. This event has evolved into the bi-annual, African-American Legislative Summit hosted by the members of the Black Caucus. At these bi-annual summits, the Black Caucus hosts a banquet to award academic scholarships to students from high schools across the state through its foundation and to recognize individuals from throughout the state for their contributions to their communities. The summits also consist of workshops focusing on issues related to improving African-American life in Texas. In addition to spearheading the creation of a Department of African American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, the Black Caucus has helped to create an Institute for Urban Policy Research and Analysis at the University of Texas at Austin "to work closely with the Texas Legislature to address and study issues affecting the African-American community and the rapidly growing urban population in the state."

Research on the effectiveness of the Texas Legislative Black Caucus has shown that since its organization in 1973, it has been very effective in representing its constituents on critical and social issues such as education, housing, and employment. Although as of 2013 it has been a minority within a minority party in the Texas legislature, its members' voting cohesion on "race relevant issues" has helped to pass legislation beneficial to the state's African-American and underserved populations.

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The Texas Legislative Black Caucus (TLBC) was organized in 1973 by eight African Americans who were elected to the Texas House of Representatives in November of 1972. These eight new state representatives were the largest number of African Americans elected to serve in the Texas legislature since Reconstruction.

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Bio

Juanita Craft, Dallas NAACP leader in the 1940s, '50s, and '60s, later served on the Dallas City Council. Photo: Wikipedia

Granddaughter of slaves, Juanita Craft transformed the deep hurts of racial discrimination into a lifetime of courageous work for its elimination. She was greatly affected by her mother's death from tuberculosis after being refused hospital treatment when there were no state hospitals for black Texans.

Despite having a college degree, Craft had to work as a maid at the Adolphus Hotel in Dallas. In 1935, she joined the NAACP and was named the Dallas membership chair in 1942. In 1946, Craft was hired as Texas field organizer and organized dozens of branches. In the 1940s, Craft organized the Dallas NAACP Youth Council, which became a nationwide model. She was the first black woman to vote in Dallas County and for 20 years was a Democratic Party precinct chair.

In the 1950s, she helped open the University of Texas and North Texas State College to blacks. In 1967, her youth group desegregated the State Fair of Texas. She and other African Americans worked to integrate public facilities through sit-ins and other demonstrations in the 1960s. She received the prestigious Linz Award in 1969 for helping end fraudulent recruiting by Dallas trade schools. In 1975, at age 73 she was elected to the Dallas City Council and later re-elected to a second term.

Audio

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Written by Cynthia J. Beeman
Read by Teresa Palomo Acosta

The granddaughter of former slaves and the daughter of educators, civil rights activist Juanita Craft grew up in Austin and attended Prairie View and Huston-Tillotson universities, but even with a college education could only find work as a drugstore clerk in Galveston, as a dressmaker in Dallas, and as a maid at the historic Adolphus Hotel. She joined the Dallas chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1935, and from that time on worked tirelessly for the cause of civil rights. As an NAACP state field organizer, she helped organize 182 branches throughout the state of Texas. Her work with the NAACP youth council in Dallas was so successful that it was emulated by other chapters around the country. She held the distinction of being the first black woman to vote in Dallas County in 1944, and in the 1950s and 1960s led protests aimed at integrating public universities and the State Fair of Texas. She led the NAACP youth council in picketing restaurants, theaters, public transportation, and other venues in Dallas.

Craft was elected to the Dallas City Council in 1975 when she was 73 years old. She held leadership positions in local, state, and national civil rights organizations and won numerous awards. The City of Dallas named a recreation center in her honor, and her simple frame house is now the Juanita Craft Civil Rights House Museum.
Resources
Mamie L. Abernathy-McKnight, "CRAFT, JUANITA JEWEL SHANKS," Handbook of Texas Online ( http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fcr59).

National Park Service, We Shall Overcome: Historic Places of the Civil Rights Movement, Juanita Craft House, http://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/civilrights/tx1.htm.
Biography Source Information
Biographies are reprinted from the Foundation for Women's Resources (now Women's Resources), Dallas, Texas. They originally appeared in "From Gutsy Mavericks to Quiet Heroes: True Tales of Texas Women," video study guide, Austin: The Foundation for Women's Resources, 1997. Death dates have been added where needed.
Audio Source Information
Our project, "Texas Women's History Moments," received the 2012 National Council on Public History Outstanding Public History Award and the American Association for State and Local History Leadership in History Award. The audio clips were broadcast on KUT radio from 2011-2016 during Women's History Month.

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Granddaughter of slaves, Juanita Craft transformed the deep hurts of racial discrimination into a lifetime of courageous work for its elimination. She was greatly affected by her mother's death from tuberculosis after being refused hospital treatment when there were no state hospitals for black Texans.

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University of Texas at El Paso Flowsheet student yearbook

The 1966 championship game for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) basketball tournament came down to a test between a small southwestern institution, El Paso's Texas Western College Miners, and an accomplished four-time NCAA tournament winner, the University of Kentucky Wildcats. This game, however, proved to be more than just a challenge by the Miners, a multi-racial team that had joined the NCAA just three years earlier, and an all-white opponent, the Wildcats, widely considered the strongest basketball team in the nation. This game, according to many sports observers, forever changed major college basketball. The Miners' unexpected victory demonstrated that African American players had the skill to control the game as well as a white team, and ultimately better than the best white team.

The 1966 Miners consisted of seven African Americans: Bobby Joe Hill, Orsten Artis, Willie Worsley, Willie Cager, Nevil Shed, Harry Flournoy, and David Lattin; four Anglo Americans: Jerry Armstrong, Louis Baudoin, Dick Meyers, and Togo Railey; and one Mexican American, Dave Palacio. The opposing team contained all Anglo Americans, which was not surprising since many African Americans gained access to Southern colleges only in the 1960s. While some southern white campuses desegregated and blacks could attend classes, they were still usually excluded from team sports. No major white institution in the South or Southwest recruited black basketball players.

In contrast to other Texas colleges and universities, as well as most universities throughout the South, Texas Western experienced integration more than a decade earlier. The Miners' coach, Don Haskins, recruited the best players, regardless of their hue. Adolph Rupp, on the other hand, the legendary coach and strategist of the Kentucky Wildcats, admitted he did not seek black players for his team.

The Miners arrived in Kentucky for the championship game on March 19, 1966. The sports announcers and writers expected an overwhelming win for the Wildcats. However, Haskins understood the pressure his team faced and sent in his best players, all African Americans. At first, Kentucky gained the advantage, but soon the Miners captured the lead during the first half and ended the final quarter with a Miner 72-65 win. This victory, according to sports writer and historian Charles Martin, "was a watershed event" because it encouraged other schools to recruit African American players.

In 2006, the movie Glory Road, depicting the significance of this game, was released. The following year, the team was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. On February 6, 2016, the now University of Texas El Paso Miners held a reunion for the 1966 players at the Don Haskins Center. The opening ceremony heard an address from President Barack Obama, which included these words: "...by becoming the first team to win an NCAA title with five black starters, the Miners weren't just champs on the court: They helped change the rules of the game. They didn't know it at the time, but their contribution to civil rights was as important as any other..." "...Go Miners!"

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The 1966 championship game for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) basketball tournament came down to a test between a small southwestern institution, El Paso's Texas Western College Miners, and an accomplished four-time NCAA tournament winner, the University of Kentucky Wildcats. This game, however, proved ...

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Courtesy Fort Worth Star-Telegram, University of Texas Special Collections

The desegregation of public schools in Mansfield, Texas was one of the most contentious in the state and eventually garnered national attention as the evolving civil rights struggles moved to the forefront of the country's conscience. In Mansfield, African Americans campaigning for civil rights in general and school integration waged a ten-year campaign to gain equal access to public schools in that community.

As a result of the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, the Mansfield school district was ordered to desegregate by Texas federal judge Joe Estes. It became the first Texas school district affected by the Brown ruling. The school board approved a measure to allow the Mansfield High School to desegregate but Mayor William Arnold "Bud" Halbert and Police Chief C.G. Harwell vowed that they would not comply with the Board's decision.

In 1955, the Mansfield Independent School District (ISD), which numbered fewer than 700 whites and 60 blacks, segregated its black students into a four-room elementary school in the city. High school students were required to ride a bus into nearby Fort Worth and then walk twenty blocks to the all-black I.M. Terrell High School.

During the same year, the Mansfield National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) filed a lawsuit on behalf of three black high school students (T.M. Moody, John F. Lawson, and Mark Moody), insisting that they should attend the high school in their community. The Mansfield NAACP hired Fort Worth attorney L. Clifford Davis to represent their interest to the school board.

Encouraged by their defiance, on August 30 and 31, 1956, an angry mob of nearly 400 whites surrounded Mansfield High School to prevent the enrollment of three African American students. Angry white residents hanged the three black students in effigy and outside reporters and observers were attacked. At one point the town's sheriff, Harlan Wright, who attempted to confront the mob, was threatened. Downtown stores closed as a show of support and vigilantes met all cars entering town, barring integration sympathizers.

Texas Governor R. Allan Shivers, who opposed the Brown decision, called out the Texas Rangers at Mansfield to prevent any black students from entering the public school. Shivers ignored the federal court order for integration by authorizing Mansfield ISD to send its black students to Fort Worth, Texas.

The Mansfield incident was the nation's first example of a failure to enforce a federal court order for the desegregation of a public school. The Mansfield School Incident encouraged later violent confrontations in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957 and at the University of Mississippi in 1962. More immediately it was the principle factor in the passage of the 1957 segregation laws by the Texas state legislature which delayed integration for several years. In 1965, faced with loss of federal funds, the Mansfield school district finally desegregated, its decade-long defiance of a federal school integration order was one of the longest in the nation during that period.

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Mansfield (Texas) School Desegregation Incident (1955-1965) *

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The desegregation of public schools in Mansfield, Texas was one of the most contentious in the state and eventually garnered national attention as the evolving civil rights struggles moved to the forefront of the country's conscience. In Mansfield, African Americans campaigning for civil rights in ...

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the founding of the harlem hellfighters 1913

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the founding of the harlem hellfighters 1913

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‘The Harlem Hellfighters’: WW1’s African-American regiment

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From Harlem to the Rhine: the story of the Harlem Hellfighters, WW1’s African-American regiment

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opening of the colored carnegie library in houston 1912

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opening of the colored carnegie library in houston 1912

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Colored Carnegie Library, Houston, Texas (1913-1961) •

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The Colored Carnegie Library was a segregated branch of the Houston Lyceum and Carnegie Library (later the Houston Public Library). It opened in 1913 in Houston’s Fourth Ward and was one of the first public libraries for African-Americans west of the Mississippi River. It was … Read MoreColored Carn…

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A poll tax is a tax of a fixed sum on every liable individual (typically every adult), without reference to income or resources. Although often associated with states of the former Confederate States of America, poll taxes were also in place in some northern and western states, including California, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Vermont and Wisconsin. Poll taxes had been a major source of government funding among the colonies which formed the United States. Poll taxes made up from one-third to one-half of the tax revenue of colonial Massachusetts. Various privileges of citizenship, including voter registration or issuance of driving licenses and resident hunting and fishing licenses, were conditioned on payment of poll taxes to encourage the collection of this tax revenue. Property taxes assumed a larger share of tax revenues as land values rose when population increases encouraged settlement of the American West. Some western states found no need for poll tax requirements; but poll taxes and payment incentives remained in eastern states, and some links to voter registration were modified following the American Civil War until court action following ratification of the 24th Amendment in 1964.

Payment of a poll tax was a prerequisite to the registration for voting in a number of states until 1965. The tax emerged in some states of the United States in the late nineteenth century as part of the Jim Crow laws. After the right to vote was extended to all races by the enactment of the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, a number of states enacted poll tax laws as a device for restricting voting rights. The laws often included a grandfather clause, which allowed any adult male whose father or grandfather had voted in a specific year prior to the abolition of slavery to vote without paying the tax. These laws, along with unfairly implemented literacy tests and extra-legal intimidation, achieved the desired effect of disenfranchising Asian-American, Native American voters and poor whites as well, but in particular the poll tax was disproportionately directed at African-American voters.

Proof of payment of a poll tax was a prerequisite to voter registration in Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia (1877), North and South Carolina, Virginia (until 1882 and again from 1902 with its new constitution), and Texas (1902). The Texas poll tax "required otherwise eligible voters to pay between $1.50 and $1.75 to register to vote - a lot of money at the time, and a big barrier to the working classes and poor." Georgia created a cumulative poll tax requirement in 1877: men of any race 21 to 60 years of age had to pay a sum of money for every year from the time they had turned 21, or from the time that the law took effect.

The poll tax requirements applied to whites as well as blacks, and also adversely affected poor citizens. The laws that allowed the poll tax did not specify a certain group of people. This meant that anyone, including white women, could also be discriminated against when they went to vote. One example is in Alabama where white women were discriminated against and then organized to secure their right to vote. One group of women that did this was Women's Joint Legislative Council of Alabama (WJLC). African American women also organized in groups against being denied voting rights. One African American woman sued the county with the help of the NAACP. She sued for her right to vote as she was stopped from even registering to vote. As a result of her suing the county the mailman did not deliver her mail for quite some time. Many states required payment of the tax at a time separate from the election, and then required voters to bring receipts with them to the polls. If they could not locate such receipts, they could not vote. In addition, many states surrounded registration and voting with complex record-keeping requirements. These were particularly difficult for sharecropper and tenant farmers to comply with, as they moved frequently.

The poll tax was sometimes used alone or together with a literacy qualification. In a kind of grandfather clause, North Carolina in 1900 exempted from the poll tax those men entitled to vote as of January 1, 1867. This excluded all blacks, who did not then have suffrage.

In 1937, in Breedlove v. Suttles, 302 U.S. 277 (1937), the United States Supreme Court found that a prerequisite that poll taxes be paid for registration to vote was constitutional. The case involved the Georgia poll tax of $1 (equivalent to $18 in 2020). Georgia abolished its poll tax in 1945. Florida repealed its poll tax in 1937.

The 24th Amendment, ratified in 1964, abolished the use of the poll tax (or any other tax) as a pre-condition for voting in federal elections, but made no mention of poll taxes in state elections.

In the 1966 case of Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections, the Supreme Court reversed its decision in Breedlove v. Suttles to also include state elections as violating the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution.

The Harper ruling was one of several that relied on the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment rather than the more direct provision of the 15th Amendment. In a two-month period in the spring of 1966, Federal courts declared unconstitutional poll tax laws in the last four states that still had them, starting with Texas on February 9. Decisions followed for Alabama (March 3) and Virginia (March 25). Mississippi's $2.00 poll tax (equivalent to $16 in 2020) was the last to fall, declared unconstitutional on April 8, 1966, by a federal panel. Virginia attempted to partially abolish its poll tax by requiring a residence certification, but the Supreme Court rejected the arrangement in 1965 in Harman v. Forssenius.

1. ^ State of Maine Special Tax Commission (1890). Report of the Special Tax Commission of Maine. Maine: Burleigh & Flynt. pp. 39-41. OCLC 551368287.

2. ^ Bullock, Charles J. (1916). "The Taxation of Property and Income in Massachusetts". The Quarterly Journal of Economics. 31 (1): 1-61. doi:10.2307/1885988. JSTOR 1885988.

3. ^ Greenblatt, Alan (October 22, 2013). "The Racial History Of The 'Grandfather Clause'". Code Switch. NPR.

4. ^ "Civil Rights Movement - Voting Rights: Are You "Qualified" to Vote? Take a "Literacy Test" to Find Out". crmvet.org.

5. ^ "Virginia's Constitutional Convention of 1901-1902". Virginia Historical Society. Archived from the original on October 2, 2006.

6. ^ "Historical Barriers to Voting". Texas Politics. University of Texas. Archived from the original on April 2, 2008.

7. ^ "Atlanta in the Civil Rights Movement". Atlanta Regional Council for Higher Education. Archived from the original on June 22, 2004.

8. ^ Wilkerson-Freeman, Sarah (2002). "The Second Battle for Woman Suffrage: Alabama White Women, the Poll Tax, and V. O. Key's Master Narrative of Southern Politics". The Journal of Southern History. 68 (2): 333-74. doi:10.2307/3069935. JSTOR 3069935.

9. ^ Jones-Branch, Cherisse (July 2006). "'To Speak When and Where I Can': African American Women's Political Activism in South Carolina in the 1940s and 1950s". The South Carolina Historical Magazine. 107 (3): 204-24. JSTOR 27570823.

10. ^ Novotny, Patrick (2007). This Georgia Rising: Education, Civil Rights, and the Politics of Change in Georgia in The 1940s. Mercer University Press. pp. 150-. ISBN 9780881460889.

11. ^ Mohl, Raymond A. (1995). "Race Relations in Miami since the 1920s". In Colburn, David R.; Landers, Jane L. (eds.). The African American Heritage of Florida. University Press of Florida. pp. 326-365. ISBN 978-0813013329.

12. ^ Hansen, Harry, ed. (1966). The World Almanac and Book of Facts: 1966. New York World-Telegram. p. 68. OCLC 277006640.

13. ^ Williams, Jr., Frank B. (November 1952). "The Poll Tax as a Suffrage Requirement in the South, 1870-1901". The Journal of Southern History. Athens, Georgia: Southern Historical Association. 18 (4): 469-496. doi:10.2307/2955220. ISSN 0022-4642. JSTOR 2955220.

14. ^ Branam, Chris M. (Autumn 2010). "Another Look at Disfranchisement in Arkansas, 1888-1894". The Arkansas Historical Quarterly. Fayetteville, Arkansas: Arkansas Historical Association. 69 (3): 245-262. ISSN 0004-1823. JSTOR 23046114.

15. ^ Lackey, John (1965). "The Poll Tax: Its Impact on Racial Suffrage". Kentucky Law Journal. Lexington, Kentucky: University of Kentucky College of Law. 54 (2): 423-432. ISSN 0023-026X. Archived from the original on March 21, 2020.

16. ^ "Dade Men Hail Teachers' Aid, Poll Tax Death". Daily News Bureau. Miami Daily News. June 6, 1937.

17. ^ Ogden, Frederic D. (1958). The Poll Tax in the South. Birmingham, Alabama: University of Alabama Press. p. 4. OCLC 918357443.

18. ^ Gigantino, Jim (August 20, 2020). "Constitutional Convention of 1877". georgiaencyclopedia.org. Atlanta, Georgia: Georgia Humanities. Archived from the original on November 12, 2020.

19. ^ Podolefsky, Ronnie L. (1998). "Illusion of Suffrage: Female Voting Rights and the Women's Poll Tax Repeal Movement after the Nineteenth Amendment". Notre Dame Law Review. Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame. 73 (3). ISSN 0745-3515. Archived from the original on October 3, 2020.

20. ^ Bemesderfer, Jean (Fall 2020). "Speaking of Rights and Wrongs: Fighting for Black Women's Suffrage, Part Two" (PDF). Northampton County Historical and Genealogical Society Newsletter. Easton, Pennsylvania: Northampton County Historical and Genealogical Society. Archived (PDF) from the original on November 11, 2020.

21. ^ Lester, Connie L. (2002). "Disfranchising Laws". Tennessee Encyclopedia. Nashville, Tennessee: Tennessee Historical Society. Archived from the original on November 25, 2020.

22. ^ Alexander, Seth; Blentlinger, Kaitlyn; Hagemann, Amber; Bean, Nathan (April 29, 2015). "1963,1966: Campaigns to Repeal Texas Poll Taxes". South Texas Rabble Rousers History Project. Corpus Christi, Texas. Archived from the original on June 6, 2016.

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Poll taxes in the United States - Wikipedia

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A poll tax is a tax of a fixed sum on every liable individual (typically every adult), without reference to income or resources. Although often associated with states of the former Confederate States of America, poll taxes were also in place in some northern and western states, including California, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Vermont and Wisconsin.

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very bad thing in history

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Jesse Washington was a seventeen-year-old African-American farmhand who was lynched in the county seat of Waco, Texas, on May 15, 1916, in what became a well-known example of racially motivated lynching. Washington was convicted of raping and murdering Lucy Fryer, the wife of his white employer in rural Robinson, Texas. He was chained by his neck and dragged out of the county court by observers. He was then paraded through the street, all while being stabbed and beaten, before being held down and castrated. He was then lynched in front of Waco's city hall.

Over 10,000 spectators, including city officials and police, gathered to watch the attack. There was a celebratory atmosphere among whites at the spectacle of the murder, and many children attended during their lunch hour. Members of the mob cut off his fingers, and hung him over a bonfire after saturating him with coal oil. He was repeatedly lowered and raised over the fire for about two hours. After the fire was extinguished, his charred torso was dragged through the town. A professional photographer took pictures as the event unfolded, providing rare imagery of a lynching in progress. The pictures were printed and sold as postcards in Waco.

Although the lynching was supported by many Waco residents, it was condemned by newspapers around the United States. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) hired Elisabeth Freeman to investigate; she conducted a detailed probe in Waco, despite the reluctance of many residents to speak about the event. Freeman concluded that white residents were generally supportive of Washington's lynching. She also concluded that Washington killed Fryer. After receiving Freeman's report on the lynching, NAACP co-founder and editor W. E. B. Du Bois published an in-depth report featuring photographs of Washington's charred body in , and the NAACP featured his death in their anti-lynching campaign.

Historians have noted that Washington's death helped alter the way lynching was viewed. The widespread negative publicity helped curb public support for the practice. In the 1990s and 2000s, some Waco residents lobbied for a monument to Washington's lynching, but this idea failed to garner wide support in the city. On the centenary of the event, in May 2016, the mayor of Waco held a formal ceremony to apologize to Washington's descendants and the African-American community. A historical marker has been installed to memorialize the lynching.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, thousands of lynchings occurred in the Southern United States, primarily of African Americans in the states of Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, and Texas. Between 1890 and 1920, about 3,000 African Americans were killed by lynch mobs in cases where they were alleged perpetrators of crimes. They were conducted outside the legal system: suspects were taken from jail and courtrooms or killed before arrest. Supporters of lynching justified the practice as a way to assert dominance over African Americans, to whom they attributed a criminal nature. Lynching also provided a sense of white solidarity in a culture with changing demographics and power structures. Although lynching was tolerated by much of southern society, opponents of the practice emerged, including some religious leaders and the nascent National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

In 1916, Waco, Texas, was a prosperous city with a population of more than 30,000. After it became associated with crime in the 19th century, community leaders sought to change its reputation, sending delegations across the U.S. to promote it as an idyllic locale. By the 1910s, Waco's economy had become strong and the city had gained a pious reputation. A black middle class had emerged in the area, along with two black colleges. In the mid-1910s, blacks comprised about twenty percent of the Waco population. In her 2006 study of lynching, journalist Patricia Bernstein describes the city as then having a "thin veneer" of peace and respectability. Racial tension was present in the city: local newspapers often emphasized crimes committed by African Americans, and Sank Majors, a black man, was lynched and hanged from a bridge near downtown Waco in 1905. A small number of anti-lynching activists lived in the area, including the president of Waco's Baylor University. In 1916, several factors led to an increase in local racism, including the screening of The Birth of a Nation, a movie that glorified the Ku Klux Klan, and the sale of photographs of a recently lynched black man in Temple, Texas.

In Robinson, Texas, Lucy Fryer was murdered while alone at her house on May 8, 1916. She was found clubbed to death, sprawled across the doorway of the farm's seed shed. It was a grisly scene that included signs of sexual assault. Officials determined a blunt instrument was used as the murder weapon. She and her husband George were English immigrants, and had become well respected in the rural community where they operated a farm. News of the death quickly reached the McLennan County Sheriff, Samuel Fleming, who immediately investigated with a team of law enforcement officers, a group of local men, and a doctor. The doctor determined that Fryer had been killed by blunt-force trauma to the head. The local men suspected that Jesse Washington, a seventeen-year-old black youth who had worked on the Fryers' farm for five months, was responsible. One man said that he had seen Washington near the Fryer house a few minutes before Lucy's body was discovered.

That night, sheriff's deputies traveled to Washington's home, finding him in front of the house wearing blood-stained overalls. He said the stains were from a nosebleed. Jesse, his brother William, and their parents were taken to nearby Waco to be questioned by the county sheriff's department; although Jesse's parents and brother were released after a short time, he was held for further interrogation, without an attorney or his parents present. His questioners in Waco reported that he denied complicity in Fryer's death, but offered contradictory details about his actions. Rumors spread after Washington's arrest that the youth had been in an altercation with a white man a few days before the murder.

On May 9, Sheriff Fleming took Washington to Hill County to prevent vigilante action. The Hill County sheriff, Fred Long, questioned Washington with Fleming. Washington eventually told them he had killed Fryer following an argument about her mules, and described the murder weapon and its location. Long brought Washington to Dallas, Texas, while Fleming returned to Robinson. Fleming soon reported that he found a bloody hammer where Washington had indicated. In Dallas, Washington dictated and signed a statement that described the rape and murder of Fryer; the confession was published the next day in Waco newspapers. Newspapers sensationalized the murder, describing Fryer's attempts to resist Washington's attack. But the doctor who had examined her body concluded that she was killed before any assault. A lynch mob assembled in Waco that night to search the local jail, but dispersed after failing to find Washington. A local paper praised their effort. That night, a small private funeral and burial were held for Lucy Fryer.

A grand jury was assembled on May 11 in McLennan County and quickly returned an indictment against Washington; the trial was scheduled for May 15. The Times-Herald of Waco published a notice on May 12 requesting that residents let the justice system determine Washington's fate. Sheriff Fleming traveled to Robinson on May 13 to ask residents to remain calm; his address was well received. Washington was assigned several inexperienced lawyers. His lawyers prepared no defense, and noted that he appeared placid in the days before the trial.

On the morning of May 15, Waco's courthouse quickly filled to capacity in anticipation of the trial: the crowd almost prevented some jurors from entering. Observers also filled the sidewalks around the courthouse; more than two thousand spectators were present. Attendees were almost entirely white, but a few quiet members of Waco's black community were present. As Washington was led into the courtroom, one audience member pointed a gun at him, but was quickly overpowered. As the trial commenced, Judge Richard Irby Munroe attempted to keep order, insisting that the audience remain silent. Jury selection proceeded quickly: the defense did not challenge any selections of the prosecution. Judge Munroe asked Washington for a plea, and explained the potential sentences. Washington muttered a response, possibly "yes", interpreted by the court as a guilty plea.

The prosecution described the charges, and the court heard testimony from law enforcement officers and the doctor who examined Fryer's body. The doctor discussed how Fryer died, but did not mention rape. The prosecution rested, and Washington's attorney asked him whether he had committed the offense. Washington replied, "That's what I done" and quietly apologized. The lead prosecutor addressed the courtroom and declared that the trial had been conducted fairly, prompting an ovation from the crowd. The jury was sent to deliberate.

After four minutes of deliberation, the jury's foreman announced a guilty verdict and a sentence of death. The trial lasted about one hour. Court officers approached Washington to escort him away, but were pushed aside by a surge of spectators, who seized Washington and dragged him outside. Washington initially fought back, biting one man, but was soon beaten. A chain was placed around his neck and he was dragged toward city hall by a growing mob; on the way downtown, he was stripped, stabbed, and repeatedly beaten with blunt objects. By the time he was taken to city hall, a group had prepared wood for a bonfire next to a tree in front of the building. Washington, semiconscious and covered in blood, was doused with oil, hanged from the tree by a chain, and lowered to the ground. Members of the crowd cut off his fingers, toes, and genitals. The fire was lit and Washington was repeatedly raised and lowered into the flames until he burned to death. German scholar Manfred Berg posits that the executioners attempted to keep him alive to increase his suffering. Washington attempted to climb the chain, but was unable to do so without fingers. The fire was extinguished after two hours, allowing bystanders to collect souvenirs from the site of the lynching, including Washington's bones and links of the chain. One attendee kept part of Washington's genitalia; a group of children snapped the teeth out of Washington's head to sell as souvenirs. By the time the fire was extinguished, parts of Washington's arms and legs had been burned off, his torso and head were charred and his cranium was exposed. His body was removed from the tree and dragged behind a horse throughout the town. Washington's remains were transported to Robinson, where they were publicly displayed until a constable obtained the body late in the day and buried it.

The spectacle of the lynching drew a large crowd estimated at 10,000 to 15,000 at its peak, including the mayor, John Dollins, and the chief of police, Guy McNamara, although lynching was illegal in Texas. Sheriff Fleming told his deputies not to try to stop the lynching, and no one was arrested after the event. Bernstein speculates that Fleming may have wanted to be seen as dealing harshly with crime to help his candidacy for re-election that year. Mayor John Dollins may have also encouraged the mob for political benefit.

Residents had telephoned acquaintances to spread word of the lynching, allowing spectators to gather more quickly and in greater numbers than before the advent of telephones. Local media reported that "shouts of delight" were heard as Washington burned, although they noted that some attendees disapproved. The Waco Semi-Weekly Tribune maintained that a number of black Waco residents attended, a claim that historian Grace Hale of the University of Virginia thinks is dubious. Waco residents, who likely had no connection with the rural Fryer family, comprised most of the crowd. Some people from nearby rural communities traveled to the city before the trial to witness the events. As the lynching occurred at midday, children from local schools walked downtown to observe, some climbing into trees for a better view. Many parents approved of their children's attendance, hoping that the lynching would reinforce a belief in white supremacy. Some Texans saw participation in a lynching as a rite of passage for young white men.

Fred Gildersleeve, a Waco-based professional photographer, arrived at city hall shortly before the lynching, possibly at the mayor's request, and photographed the event. His photographs provide rare depictions of a lynching in progress, rather than typical lynching photography, which shows only dead victims. Gildersleeve's photographs include views of the crowd shot from a building and close images of Washington's body; some may have been taken by an assistant. Gildersleeve produced postcards featuring images of adolescents, some as young as twelve, gathered around Washington's body. The individuals in the photographs made no attempt to hide their identities. Berg believes that their willingness to be photographed indicates that they knew that no one would be prosecuted for Washington's death. Although some Waco residents sent the cards to out-of-town relatives, several prominent local citizens persuaded Gildersleeve to stop selling them, fearing that the images would come to characterize the town.

In the days after the lynching, newspapers fiercely condemned the event. Within a week, news of the lynching was published as far away as London. A New York Times editorial opined that, "in no other land even pretending to be civilized could a man be burned to death in the streets of a considerable city amid the savage exultation of its inhabitants". In the New York Age, James Weldon Johnson described the members of the lynch mob as "lower than any other people who at present inhabit the earth". Although many southern newspapers had previously defended lynching as a defense of civilized society, after Washington's death, they did not cast the practice in such terms. The Montgomery Advertiser wrote that, "no savage was ever more cruel ... than the men who participated in this horrible, almost unbelievable episode". In Texas, the Houston Chronicle and the Austin American criticized the lynch mob, but spoke highly of Waco. The Morning News of Dallas reported the story, but did not publish an accompanying editorial. In Waco, the Times-Herald refrained from editorializing about the lynching. The Waco Morning News briefly noted disapproval of the lynching, focusing criticism on papers they felt had attacked the city unfairly. They cast the condemnatory editorials in the aftermath of the lynching as "Holier than thou" remarks. A writer for the Waco Semi-Weekly Tribune defended the lynching, stating that Washington deserved to die and that blacks should view Washington's death as a warning against crime. The paper later carried an editorial from the Houston Post condemning the lynching, characterizing the column as part of an attack on the city.

Some residents condemned the lynching, including ministers and leaders of Baylor University. The judge who presided over Washington's trial later stated that members of the lynch mob were "murderers"; the jury's foreman told the NAACP that he disapproved of their actions. Some who witnessed the lynching recorded persistent nightmares and psychological trauma. A few citizens contemplated staging a protest against the lynching, but declined to do so owing to concerns about reprisals or the appearance of hypocrisy. After the lynching, town officials maintained that it was attended by a small group of malcontents. Although their claim is contradicted by photographic evidence, several histories of Waco have repeated this assertion. There were no negative repercussions for Mayor Dollins or Police Chief Guy McNamara; although they made no attempt to stop the mob, they remained well respected in Waco. As was common with such attacks, no one was prosecuted for the lynching.

Although leaders of Waco's black community gave public condolences to the Fryer family, they complained about Washington's lynching only in private. One exception was the Paul Quinn Weekly newspaper, of Texas' Paul Quinn College, a black college. It published several articles that criticized the lynch mob and city leadership. In one article, the author proclaimed that Jesse Washington was innocent and George Fryer was guilty. A. T. Smith, the paper's editor, was subsequently convicted of libel. George Fryer also sued the college for libel; his vehemence caused some Robinson residents to suspect that he played a part in his wife's death. Bernstein states that it is "highly unlikely" that George Fryer played a role in Lucy's murder, but notes that there is the "shadow of a possibility" that he bore some guilt.

On May 11, 1953, an F5 tornado tore right through Downtown Waco, killing 114 people and injuring 593 others. In the aftermath of the disaster, some people in the local African-American community saw the tornado as divine retribution for the lynching of Jesse Washington over thirty years prior.

The NAACP hired Elisabeth Freeman, a women's suffrage activist based in New York City, to investigate the lynching. She had traveled to Texas in late 1915 or early 1916 to help organize the suffrage movement, and was already in Dallas for a statewide convention in early May. Freeman began her assignment in Waco soon after the lynching, posing as a journalist and attempting to interview people about the events. She found that most residents were reluctant to discuss the event. She spoke with town officials and obtained pictures of the lynching from Gildersleeve, who was initially reluctant to provide them. Although she feared for her safety, she enjoyed the challenge of the investigation. When speaking with city leaders, Freeman convinced them that she planned to defend Waco against criticism when she returned to the North. Some journalists soon grew suspicious of her and warned residents not to talk to outsiders. Local African Americans, however, gave her a warm reception.

Freeman interviewed both Sheriff Fleming and the judge who presided over the trial; each said that he did not deserve blame for the lynching. A schoolteacher who had known Washington told Freeman that the young man was illiterate, and that all attempts to teach him to read had been futile. Freeman concluded that white residents were generally supportive of Washington's lynching after his conviction, although many were upset that he had been mutilated. She determined that the mob that took him from the courtroom was led by a bricklayer, a saloonkeeper, and several employees of an ice company. The NAACP did not publicly identify them. Freeman concluded that Washington killed Fryer, and suggested he had resented her domineering attitude towards him.

W. E. B. Du Bois had been incensed by news of the brutal attack, saying "any talk of the triumph of Christianity, or the spread of human culture, is idle twaddle as long as the Waco lynching is possible in the United States". After receiving Freeman's report, he placed a photograph of Washington's body on the cover of , the NAACP's newsletter, in a special issue that discussed the event. The issue was titled "The Waco Horror" and was published as an eight-page supplement to the July edition. Du Bois popularized "Waco Horror" as a name for Washington's lynching; the Houston Chronicle and the New York Times had previously used the word "horror" to describe the event. In 1916, The Crisis had a circulation of about 30,000, three times the size of the NAACP's membership.

Although The Crisis had campaigned against lynching in the past, this was the first issue to publish images of an attack. The NAACP's board was initially hesitant to publish such graphic content, but Du Bois insisted on doing so, arguing that uncensored coverage would push white Americans to support change. The issue included accounts of the lynching that Freeman had obtained from Waco residents. Du Bois wrote The Crisis' article on the lynching; he edited and organized Freeman's report for publication, but did not credit her in the issue. Du Bois's article concluded with a call to support the anti-lynching movement. The NAACP distributed the report to hundreds of newspapers and politicians, a campaign that led to wide condemnation of the lynching. Many white observers were disturbed by photos of the southerners who celebrated the lynching. The Crisis included more images of lynchings in subsequent issues. Washington's death received continued discussion in The Crisis. Oswald Garrison Villard wrote in a later edition of the paper that "the crime at Waco is a challenge to our American civilization".

Other black newspapers also carried significant coverage of the lynching, as did liberal monthly magazines such as The New Republic and . Freeman traveled around the U.S. to speak to audiences about her investigation, maintaining that a shift in public opinion could accomplish more than legislative actions. Although there were other lynchings as brutal as Washington's, the availability of photographs and the setting of his death made it a cause célèbre. Leaders of the NAACP hoped to launch a legal battle against those responsible for Washington's death, but abandoned the plan owing to the projected cost.

The NAACP had struggled financially around that time. Their anti-lynching campaign helped them raise funds, but they scaled back the campaign as the U.S. entered World War I. NAACP president Joel Elias Spingarn later said that the group's campaign placed "lynching into the public mind as something like a national problem". In her 2006 study of lynching, Bernstein describes this anti-lynching campaign as the "barest beginnings of a battle that would last many years".

The number of lynchings in the U.S. increased in the late 1910s, particularly in the postwar period. In addition, in the summer and fall of 1919, called Red Summer, racial riots of whites against blacks broke out in numerous large cities, including in the Northeast and Midwest, due in part to tensions related to competition for jobs and housing in the postwar period as veterans struggled to re-enter society. Particularly in Chicago and Washington, DC, blacks fought back fiercely in the riots but suffered the most casualties and property losses. They believed their war service should have earned them better treatment as citizens.

More lynchings took place in Waco in the 1920s, partially owing to the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan. By the late 1920s, however, Waco authorities had begun to protect blacks from lynching, as in the case of Roy Mitchell. Authorities feared that negative publicity generated by lynchings-such as the NAACP's campaign following Washington's death-would hinder their efforts to attract business investors. The NAACP fought to portray lynching as a savage, barbaric practice, an idea which eventually gained traction in the public mind. Bernstein credits the group's efforts with helping to end "the worst public atrocities of the racist system" in the Waco region.

In 2011, Manfred Berg speculated that Washington probably murdered Fryer, but doubted that he raped her. The same year, Julie Armstrong of the University of South Florida argued that Washington was possibly innocent of both charges. In her 2006 book, Patricia Bernstein noted that Washington's motives have never been established clearly, although he did confess to having a dispute about mules with Fryer and there was a witness who alleged to have seen a dispute, as noted previously. She also states that his confession could have been coerced, and that there is evidence of limited intellectual capacity. She suggests that the murder weapon-perhaps the strongest evidence against him-could have been planted by authorities.

Bernstein states that Washington's lynching was a unique event because of its scale and location; not only did it occur in a larger city with a reputation for progressiveness, but it was attended by 10,000 spectators who were excited by the brutal torture. Similar acts of mob violence typically occurred in smaller towns with fewer spectators. William Carrigan of Rowan University argues that the culture of central Texas had glorified retributive mob violence for decades before Washington's lynching, maintaining that this culture of violence explains how such a brutal attack could be publicly celebrated. Hale posits that Washington's death signaled a transition in the practice of lynching, demonstrating its acceptance in modernized, 20th-century cities. She notes that Washington's lynching illustrates how technological innovations, such as telephones and inexpensive photographs, could empower lynch mobs but also increase society's condemnation of their actions.

In their 2004 study of lynching, Peter Ehrenhaus and A. Susan Owen compare the lynching to a blood sacrifice, arguing Waco residents felt a sense of collective righteousness after Washington's death, as they saw him as the presence of evil in the community. Bernstein compares the public brutality of the lynch mob to the medieval English practice of hanging, drawing, and quartering people convicted of high treason.

Amy Louise Wood of Illinois State University writes that the event was "a defining moment in the history of lynching", arguing that with Washington's death, "lynching began to sow the seeds of its own collapse". Although the spectacle of violent mob attacks had previously benefited white supremacists, Wood contends that after Washington's death was publicized, the anti-lynching movement included images of racially motivated brutality in their campaigns. Carrigan notes that Washington's death may have received more public attention than any other lynching in the United States, and sees the event as a "turning point in the history of mob violence in Central Texas". Although the outcry it provoked did not end the practice, it helped bring an end to public support of such attacks by city leaders. Carrigan states that the lynching was "the most infamous day in the history of central Texas" until the Waco siege of 1993.

After the practice of lynching was suppressed in central Texas, it received little attention from local historians. However, Waco developed a reputation for racism-propagated in part by American history textbooks-to the vexation of the city's white residents. In the years following the lynching, African Americans often held Waco in disdain, and some viewed the 1953 Waco tornado outbreak as divine retribution. White leaders of Waco took a non-violent approach in response to demonstrations during the Civil Rights Movement, possibly owing to a desire to avoid stigmatizing the city again.

Blues musician Sammy Price recorded a version of " Hesitation Blues" that referenced Washington's lynching. Price lived in Waco as a child, possibly at the time of Washington's death. Waco-based novelist Madison Cooper featured a lynching, thought to be based on Washington's death, as a key event in his 1952 novel Sironia, Texas.

In the 1990s, Lawrence Johnson, a member of Waco's city council, viewed pictures of the Washington lynching at the National Civil Rights Museum, and began to lobby for a monument to the lynching. In 2002, Lester Gibson, another member of the city council, proposed that a plaque be installed at the courthouse where Washington was lynched. He further stated that the plaque should carry an apology from the city. The ideas were discussed, but were not developed. In the 2000s, the idea of a memorial was revived by a McLennan County commissioner and the Waco Chamber of Commerce; the Waco Herald Tribune has editorialized in support of a historical marker on the site of the lynching. Some descendants of Fryer objected to the proposed memorial.

On the centenary of the lynching, May 15, 2016, the mayor of Waco apologized in a formal ceremony to Washington's relatives and issued a proclamation condemning Washington's lynching and noting the anniversary of the event. A historical marker is being erected at the site.

In the 2018 film BlacKkKlansman, Harry Belafonte portrays a witness to the lynching who describes the event at a civil rights rally in 1970s Colorado Springs.

Nevels, Cynthia Skove (2007). Lynching to Belong: Claiming Whiteness Through Racial Violence. Texas A&M University Press. ISBN 978-1-58544-589-9.

Rice, Anne P. (2003). Witnessing Lynching: American Writers Respond. Rutgers University Press. ISBN 978-0-8135-3330-8.

Bills, E. R. (2015). Black Holocaust: The Paris Horror and a Legacy of Texas Terror. Eakin Press. ISBN 978-1-68179-017-6.

Du Bois, W. E. B. (July 1916). "The Waco Horror" (PDF). The Crisis. Archived by the Modernist Journals Project. 12 (Supplement to no. 3): 1-8. Archived from the original (PDF) on April 1, 2013. ()

Fair, Richard H. "'The Good Angel of Practical Fraternity:' The Ku Klux Klan in McLennan County, 1915-1924", 2009, Baylor University master's thesis.

Goodwyn, Wade. "Waco Recalls a 90-Year-Old 'Horror'", National Public Radio. May 13, 2006. (Transcript of radio story)

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Lynching of Jesse Washington - Wikipedia

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Jesse Washington was a seventeen-year-old African-American farmhand who was lynched in the county seat of Waco, Texas, on May 15, 1916, in what became a well-known example of racially motivated lynching. Washington was convicted of raping and murdering Lucy Fryer, the wife of his white employer in rural Robinson, Texas.

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this was a scary moment in history

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The Slocum Massacre occurred on July 29, 1910 in Slocum, Texas, an unincorporated community in southeast Anderson County. The city used to be home to a thriving African American community with several businesses and farms owned by black residents. Leading up to the massacre, a … Read MoreThe Slocum…