Story of the Buffalo Soldiers
During the Civil War, more than 180,000 black soldiers served in segregated Union Army regiments, and many of those units achieved outstanding combat records. After the war, the U.S. Congress reorganized the peacetime army to include black enlisted men in the Ninth and the Tenth United States Cavalry. By 1869 Congress added the Twenty-fourth and […]
Ex-Slave Becomes Community Leader
Born into slavery in Arkansas in 1845, Nelson Taylor Denson moved, at age eleven, to Falls County in East Texas with his master. Denson, who had been educated by his master, developed high regard for Sam Houston after hearing Houston speak when he visited Marlin in his campaign for governor. During the Civil War, Denson […]
Bessie Coleman, Aviator
When flight schools in the United States refused to accept African Americans, Elizabeth Coleman sought aviation training in France. She became the first black female to earn a pilot’s license and the first black person in the world to earn an international pilot’s license. One of thirteen children born to sharecroppers in 1892, Bessie grew […]
Former Texas Slaves Serve in the Union Army
Three Holland brothers—Milton, William, and James—were slaves born in the 1840s on Spearman Holland’s plantation near Carthage. Apparently their father was Spearman’s half brother, Capt. Bird Holland who purchased his sons from Spearman and moved them to Travis County. Little is known of their early life except that Bird Holland freed his three sons in […]
Bose Ikard, Black Cowboy
More than a quarter of the cowboys in the 19th century were black and Bose Ikard became one of the most famous frontiersmen and trail drivers in Texas. Born on a Mississippi slave plantation in 1843, Bose Ikard moved to Texas when he was nine years old with his master Dr. Milton Ikard. The family […]
The Mystery of Millie Durkin
She was eighteen months old on October 13, 1864, when a Kiowa warrior entered a blazing ranch house and found Millie Durkin crawling out from under a bed after the raiding party had killed her mother and baby brother. Over the next eighteen years Millie’s grandmother, Elizabeth Carter Clifton led a determined search for the […]
Manifest Destiny Marches Across West Texas
The end of the Mexican-American War in 1848, fulfilled the dreams of manifest destiny for many citizens and politicians as the United States acquired the land belonging to Mexico that stretched all the way to the Pacific Ocean. The following year, gold was discovered in California and the rush was on. Forts had to be […]
Rosenwald Schools
Black children in the South attended segregated schools that were dilapidated. They used books castoff from white schools. At times they attended classes in churches and lodge halls because the local school board did not provide buildings for black students. Two men worked to change all that. Booker T. Washington, founder of Tuskegee Institute and […]
From Slave to Powerful Politician
Despite being born into slavery in 1846, Norris Wright Cuney did not live an ordinary slave’s life. His education and other opportunities, led the way to his becoming one of Texas’ most powerful black political leaders of the nineteenth century. Cuney’s father, Colonel Philip Cuney, one of the largest landholders in Texas, owned 105 slaves, […]
Black History Month–Part IV
Black women have received little attention for the critical role they have played in maintaining their families and contributing to their communities. After running across a brief reference to Rachel Whitfield (1814-1908) a “former slave who made it on her own as head of a household, subsistence farmer,” I began searching for more. I found […]