A History of Fort Worth in Black & White


Book Description

A History of Fort Worth in Black & White fills a long-empty niche on the Fort Worth bookshelf: a scholarly history of the city's black community that starts at the beginning with Ripley Arnold and the early settlers, and comes down to today with our current battles over education, housing, and representation in city affairs. The book's sidebars on some noted and some not-so-noted African Americans make it appealing as a school text as well as a book for the general reader. Using a wealth of primary sources, Richard Selcer dispels several enduring myths, for instance the mistaken belief that Camp Bowie trained only white soldiers, and the spurious claim that Fort Worth managed to avoid the racial violence that plagued other American cities in the twentieth century. Selcer arrives at some surprisingly frank conclusions that will challenge current politically correct notions.




Calvin Littlejohn


Book Description

In 1934, the year Calvin Littlejohn came to Fort Worth, the city was a sleepy little burg. This was the Jim Crow era, when mainstream newspapers wouldn't publish pictures of black citizens and white photographers wouldn't take pictures in black schools. In Fort Worth, Littlejohn began what would become a lifelong career of documenting the black community. And there would be nothing remotely related to the white culture's depictions of Amos 'n' Andy or black kids grinning over a slice of watermelon in Littlejohn's portrayal of his adopted home and the people he came to appreciate and love. Littlejohn's natural aptitude for drawing had been honed by correspondence courses in graphic design and a stint in a photo shop where he learned about the camera, lighting, and the use of shadows. When Littlejohn was assigned to be the official photographer at I. M. Terrell--the city's only black high school at the time--his professional career was launched. Unlike many segregated cities, where blacks lived only in one section, blacks in Cowtown lived in every quadrant of the city. There was a thriving black business district, with hotels, restaurants, a movie theater, a bank, and a major hospital, pharmacy, and nursing school. And of course, there were the schools and churches. All would eventually be seen through Littlejohn's lens. Although he never set out to be the documentarian of Fort Worth's black community, he did what he set out to do: to capture the best of a community, focusing on its good times. This book features more than 150 shots Littlejohn captured over the course of his career.




Fort Worth Stories


Book Description

Fort Worth Stories is a collection of thirty-two bite-sized chapters of the city’s history. Did you know that the same day Fort Worth was mourning the death of beloved African American “Gooseneck Bill” McDonald, Dallas was experiencing a series of bombings in black neighborhoods? Or that Fort Worth almost got the largest statue to Robert E. Lee ever put up anywhere, sculpted by the same massive talent that created Mount Rushmore? Or that Fort Worth was once the candy-making capital of the Southwest and gave Hershey, Pennsylvania, a good run for its money as the sweet spot of the nation? A remarkable number of national figures have made a splash in Fort Worth, including Theodore Roosevelt while he was President; Vernon Castle, the Dance King; Dr. H.H. Holmes, America’s first serial killer; Harry Houdini, the escape artist; and Texas Guinan, star of the vaudeville stage and the big screen. Fort Worth Stories is illustrated with 50 photographs and drawings, many of them never before published. This collection of stories will appeal to all who appreciate the Cowtown city.




Black Texans


Book Description

discusses each period of African-American history in terms of politics, violence, and legal status; labor and economic status; education; and social life. Black Texans includes the history of the buffalo soldiers and the cowboys on Texas cattle drives, along with the achievements of notable African-American individuals in Texas history, from Estevan the explorer through legislator Norris Wright Cuney and boxer Jack Johnson to state senator Barbara Jordan. Barr carries.




Fort Worth Parks


Book Description

Fort Worth sits on a blend of timber and prairie land that is transected by the Trinity River and its tributaries. These physical attributes invited the creation of parks to preserve scenic landscapes and to provide Fort Worth residents with access to nature. Generous land donations as well as the foresight of city leaders allowed for the acquisition of park land, particularly after the formation of the park department in 1909. Local architects and such well-known names as George E. Kessler, Hare and Hare, Philip Johnson, and Lawrence Halprin have left a rich legacy of nationally recognized parks and recreational amenities. These include the Fort Worth Zoo, Fort Worth Botanic Garden, the Water Gardens, Heritage Plaza, Fort Worth Nature Center and Refuge, and Fort Woof, the city's first dog park.




Civil Rights in Black and Brown


Book Description

2022 Best Book Award, Oral History Association Hundreds of stories of activists at the front lines of the intersecting African American and Mexican American liberation struggle Not one but two civil rights movements flourished in mid-twentieth-century Texas, and they did so in intimate conversation with one another. Far from the gaze of the national media, African American and Mexican American activists combated the twin caste systems of Jim Crow and Juan Crow. These insurgents worked chiefly within their own racial groups, yet they also looked to each other for guidance and, at times, came together in solidarity. The movements sought more than integration and access: they demanded power and justice. Civil Rights in Black and Brown draws on more than 500 oral history interviews newly collected across Texas, from the Panhandle to the Piney Woods and everywhere in between. The testimonies speak in detail to the structure of racism in small towns and huge metropolises—both the everyday grind of segregation and the haunting acts of racial violence that upheld Texas’s state-sanctioned systems of white supremacy. Through their memories of resistance and revolution, the activists reveal previously undocumented struggles for equity, as well as the links Black and Chicanx organizers forged in their efforts to achieve self-determination.




Fort Worth Then and Now


Book Description

Although the details fade with time, our memory of the location doesn't change substantially - the way the place looked, our sense of how people used it or the feelings it evoked. In reality, though, things do change whether the alterations involve only minor details or major changes to the landscape and buildings.".




Baseball in Fort Worth


Book Description

In 2003, over 160,000 fans watched professional baseball in downtown Fort Worth's near north side. Baseball, which had been played in this north side area since 1911, had returned after a near 40-year absence. Fort Worth's rich tradition of professional baseball dates back to the start of the Texas League of Professional Baseball Clubs in 1888 and includes many players who continued to impact our national pastime at the major league level. Presenting over 170 photographs, programs, and maps this volume documents not only the play on the field, but the fun and excitement off the field as well. The book contains a chapter on Fort Worth's black baseball history, which dates back to the turn of the 20th century, and includes the new discovery of a forgotten ballpark dedicated to the black players and leagues of the early 1900s. Though the details are difficult to trace, this chapter showcases the pride the players demonstrated at the local level and the force they became in the national Negro leagues.




African Americans in Central Texas History


Book Description

Bruce A. Glasrud and Deborah M. Liles have gathered over thirty years of scholarship—articles, book excerpts, and new, original essays—to offer for the first time an overview of the history of African Americans in Central Texas. From slavery and agriculture in the nineteenth century to entrepreneurship and the struggle for civil rights in the twentieth century, African Americans in Central Texas History: From Slavery to Civil Rights fills in the critical missing pieces of an often-overlooked region in the state’s history. African Americans first entered Central Texas with Spanish explorers, but few remained. White slave holders later brought black residents—as slaves—to this region. With the end of the Civil War, slavery may have ended but the brutalities of racial prejudice persisted. During Reconstruction, new attempts to ensure civil and political rights were resisted through terror, racial violence, and systemic denial of justice. Well into the twentieth century, segregation persisted, but years of individual and mobilized protest finally led to significant reform. Organizations such as the NAACP provided vital support. Before efforts to disenfranchise the black vote became successful, some politicians even courted black voters to further their own political agendas. African Americans in Central Texas History is a rare source that sheds light on the African American experience in the heart of the state.




Amon Carter


Book Description

Raised in a one-room log cabin in a small North Texas town, Amon G. Carter (1879–1955) rose to become the founder and publisher of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, a seat of power from which he relentlessly promoted the city of Fort Worth, amassed a fortune, and established himself as the quintessential Texan of his era. The first in-depth, scholarly biography of this outsize character and civic booster, Amon Carter: A Lone Star Life chronicles a remarkable life and places it in the larger context of state and nation. Though best known for the Star-Telegram, Carter also established WBAP, Fort Worth’s first radio station, which in 1948 became the first television station in the Southwest. He was responsible for bringing the headquarters of what would become American Airlines to Fort Worth and for securing government funding for a local aircraft factory that evolved into Lockheed Martin. Historian Brian A. Cervantez has drawn on Texas Christian University’s rich collection of Carter papers to chart Carter’s quest to bring business and government projects to his adopted hometown, enterprises that led to friendships with prominent national figures such as Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Will Rogers, H. L. Mencken, and John Nance Garner. After making millions of dollars in the oil business, Carter used his wealth to fund schools, hospitals, museums, churches, parks, and camps. His numerous philanthropic efforts culminated in the Amon G. Carter Foundation, which still supports cultural and educational endeavors throughout Texas. He was a driving force behind the establishment of Texas Tech University, a major contributor to Texas Christian University, a key figure in the creation of Big Bend National Park, and an art lover whose collection of the works of Frederic Remington and Charles M. Russell served as the foundation of the Amon Carter Museum of American Art. Amon Carter: A Lone Star Life testifies to the singular character and career of one man whose influence can be seen throughout the cultural and civic life of Fort Worth, Texas, and the American Southwest to this day.