Lewis “Les” Ritcherson, born in Hillsboro, Texas in 1926, was the first African American to coach at the University of Wisconsin and the second African American football coach in the Big Ten. Ritcherson began his football career at A.J. Moore High School in Waco. As a senior, he earned All-District Defensive End as Moore High took home the 1942 district title. The team’s talent caught the eye of HBCUs around Texas, and Wiley College in Marshall offered Ritcherson a football scholarship.

Ritcherson attended Wiley from 1943-1946, playing football and basketball all four years and running track for two years. Wiley had an exceptional football program and won the Southwest Athletic Conference three out of Ritcherson’s four years as a player. Wiley’s coaches, Fred and Harry Long, were renowned among Black football coaches. In 1945, the football team went 10-0 and won the Orange Blossom Classic, the national championship game for HBCU football teams, against Florida A&M. Ritcherson’s performance that season and particularly in that game led to renowned sportswriter Fay Young naming him an end on his Black All-American team, an honor that came with a five-dollar prize.

After a short stint as football and debate coach in Midland, Texas, A.J. Moore High School hired Ritcherson in 1950 as head football coach. Moore High under Ritcherson went on to be state champion in 1952 and 1965 and state co-champion in 1951 and 1960. Ritcherson, at the urging of assistant coaches and players, started his son, Lewis Ritcherson Jr., at quarterback his last three years at Moore High. Coaching at Moore High was not without its struggles. The Black teams in the area played midweek games because the white schools played on weekends. This meant that the team often had to travel as far as Dallas or even Corpus Christi on school nights, and often the team bus got in so late that players and coaches would spend the rest of the night in the school gym.

In 1966, the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison) sent assistant coach Deral Teteak to Texas to scout players. Teteak was impressed by Ritcherson’s coaching during his stop at Moore High, and soon after, Wisconsin Head Coach Milt Bruhn offered Ritcherson the position of receiver’s coach at the university. Although initially unsure about leaving Moore High, Ritcherson decided to take the job. He negotiated an unusual five-year contract with the university after hearing that administration might fire Bruhn the next year. Ritcherson was the first African American coach in any sport at the University of Wisconsin. At this time, Iowa’s Frank Gilliam was the only other Black football coach in the Big Ten.

As expected, the university replaced Bruhn after the 1966 season and hired John Coatta, a former Badger quarterback, to replace him. Coatta hired many of his former teammates as assistants. They greatly influenced his coaching decisions and upended the chain of command. These coaches were also extremely hard on their players, a tactic which Ritcherson felt to be unnecessary, especially when it was not improving the quality of the team.

In the sixties, considerable tension existed between Black and white students on campus, and this tension was prevalent between players and coaches on the football team. Many of the coaches treated the Black players poorly and would not pay attention to the players’ grievances. This led some of the Black players to boycott the team banquet. They also threatened to boycott a game against Minnesota, but Ritcherson felt that such an action could endanger their scholarships, and he talked them out of it. Despite the coldness of the coaching staff, the UW-Madison Athletic Board strove to help the Black players. The board even hired a psychiatrist to examine the players and coaches and suggest new ways to improve both their relationships and the team environment as a whole.

The prejudice of the other coaches affected Ritcherson as much as it affected the players. They often held meetings without him or ignored his opinion when making decisions. Ritcherson especially struggled with the lack of his peers on the staff. To remedy this, he organized the first meeting of Black coaches at predominantly white institutions at the 1970 American Football Coaches Association convention.

After he retired from coaching in 1970, Ritcherson took a job as an affirmative action officer first at UW-Extension, then back at UW-Madison. As an affirmative action officer, Ritcherson’s job was to encourage university departments to hire minorities. It was often difficult to convince departments to hire minorities because of what Ritcherson called the “old buddy system.” This meant that the departments only wanted to hire people they already knew. Despite this and other obstacles, Ritcherson made considerable progress in the university. One of his biggest successes was the program he set up with the nursing school to recruit from North Carolina A&T and Tuskegee Institute. Ritcherson was also instrumental in the creation of the Afro-American Studies Program and encouraged its administrators to hire a diverse staff.

Ritcherson retired from administration in 1990. He has since been inducted into the Texas Sports Hall of Champions and the Waco Independent School District Athletics Hall of Fame. When he passed away in 2019, Lewis Ritcherson had created a lasting impact both on the university and on his players. While he as an individual might not have much national renown, it was his effort and the efforts of all the Black coaches, players, and administrators that were willing to suffer injustice to set a precedent that broke the color line in college sports.

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With a bellowing voice and masterful piano playing, Mercy Dee Walton emerged as an early influence in rhythm and blues not only in Waco but across the country. Towering figures such as Ma Rainey and Fats Domino are rightfully remembered as foundational for the blues and later rock n’ roll, but artists with less recording opportunities, like Walton, also shaped the country’s music scene in the early twentieth century.

Walton grew up on the water. His parents, Fred and Bessie Walton, worked on a small farm on the banks of Brazos in Waco and welcomed their son on August 30, 1915. Though a young Mercy Dee Walton worked the corn and cotton fields, he found himself captivated by local music. Aspiring musicians traversed Texas, performing on stages and in homes for little to nothing. Thirteen-year-old Walton listened, soaking in soulful vocals and rhythmic instrumentals. The blues artists he heard told stories of hardship and of love to steel guitar and striking barrelhouse piano arrangements. Searching for his own voice, Walton began to play piano and sing the blues at ten-cent house parties, where locals could pay a dime to hear the young artist hone his skills.

Waco’s own musicians influenced Walton’s sound. Unrecorded artists, such as Pete the Grey Ghost and Delois Maxey, impacted his style and song. Though many blues artists of the early twentieth century never recorded albums, their artistry formed other musicians. When Walton witnessed Maxey’s piano expertise at house parties, for example, he modeled his own playing after him. Others also influenced his sound, including Waco and Marlin piano players Son Brewster and Bob Jackson. Though labels never captured their talents, their inflections remained present in the work of later blues musicians.

Audiences certainly understood the talent of these rising artists. As Walton grew in popularity, he moved from intimate venues to larger crowds in Fort Worth. In the early 1930s, he took the stage at the Dixie and Bryson Taverns. Other emerging musicians, such as Pinetop Shorty, joined him. After playing the Texas circuit, Walton decided to move westward to an up-and-coming music metropolis, Los Angeles, in the late 1930s.

While playing around Fresno, Chester Lu, an executive at a smaller recording label called Spire Company, heard Walton’s talent. Walton recorded his first song “Lonesome Cabin Blues” with Spire. Though the song rose to the top ten on R&B charts, Walton’s performances and albums did not result in financial prosperity. As he sang about his troubles on stage, they persisted in his life as he continued to labor for little pay. For instance, at one venue, Walton performed for a few dollars and a hot meal. Agricultural work provided supplemental income as Walton continued to pursue his musical career, and he often performed at bars where Black farmworkers gathered to listen to lyrics that illustrated their experiences. 

After reaching number seven on the charts with “Lonesome Cabin Blues,” Walton cut a record with Imperial Records. The songs never charted, and Walton did not record any more songs with Imperial. Things changed when Walton joined Specialty Records. He recorded his hit song “One Room Country Shack” in May 1952, and garnered national attention. He briefly toured with the popular Jay McNeely Band, whose smooth saxophone sound skyrocketed the group to the top of the Billboard charts. A long way from the Texas circuit, Walton traveled across the country, singing popular tracks, such as “Roamin’ Blues” and “Romp & Stomp Blues,” in auditoriums for large crowds. One song that captured fans’ attention was “Rent Man Blues,” which featured Walton’s wife, Thelma Walton, who received the pseudonym Lady Fox on the record.

Walton cut more records with Specialty, but none accumulated extensive recognition. Notably, payola, the practice of bribing radio hosts to play certain songs to increase an artist’s popularity and a label’s success, ran rampant throughout Walton’s career. Though he recorded with two small labels, Rhythm and Flair, in the mid-1950s, his albums did not reach previous heights on the charts. He moved to Stockton, California, where he continued agricultural work and played music on a smaller scale.

Though Walton’s recording opportunities seemed to decline over time, in 1961, record producer and blues fan Chris Strachwitz began to record with Walton on his newly founded label, Arhoolie. With his remarkable barrelhouse piano style, Walton put down multiple tracks with Strachwitz. Tragically, as his career seemed to be resurging in the recording studio, Walton died suddenly in December 1962. Though his recordings remain few, his conceptions of rhythm and blues live on, shaping artists in Waco and beyond.

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At the end of the Civil War, a new nation seemed to be on the horizon. Emancipation and the beginning of Reconstruction signaled a shift in national, state, and local institutions across the country. The Reconstruction Era, though certainly flawed, offered potential equality for Black and white citizens. During this period of immense change, Black men began to vote and entered positions of power previously denied to them. Formerly enslaved and freed men were elected to public office only a few years after the abolition of slavery.

In Texas, voters elected African American legislators throughout Reconstruction, including fifty-two at the state level. Comprised of farmers, businessmen, preachers, teachers, and lawyers, each of these men had different backgrounds. Though many were denied formal education by their enslavers, most were literate, and all joined the Republican, often referred to as the Radical, Party. Through their positions, they sought to improve the lives of Black people whose opportunities remained scarce after emancipation. For many, postwar freedom in Texas meant sharecropping and tenant farming for low wages, often under the supervision of former enslavers. Many Black officials during Reconstruction endeavored to address these oppressions and provide resources to those in need.

Shep Mullens, one of these Black officials in Texas, resided in Waco. Born enslaved in 1828 in Lawrence County, Alabama, Mullens’s white enslavers relocated to Texas in 1854. They eventually moved to Waco by 1860, where Mullens remained following emancipation. On August 23, 1867, he registered to vote in McLennan County. That same year, General Charles Griffin, a military leader stationed in the previously Confederate state, appointed Mullens to County Commissioner and Voter Registrar. Griffin, who worked for the Freedman’s Bureau of Texas, registered Black and white voters throughout the state, and refused to recognize public officials who had previously worked on behalf of the Confederacy.

After Mullens’s appointment in 1867, voters elected him to the Constitutional Convention of 1868-69, where he filled the seat of a deceased member who previously represented McLennan, Falls, and Bell Counties. There, he served as a member of the Public Lands, Commerce, and Manufactures Committees. Following this election, General Joseph John Reynolds, who succeeded General Griffin, again selected Mullens as County Commissioner of McLennan County. Republican Party members and local voters saw Mullens as a promising, rising politician.

In 1869, Republicans appointed Mullens to Republican Party leader of McLennan County, and voters elected him to a seat in the Texas House of Representatives. He took the oath of office for the Twelfth Legislature on February 8, 1870. That legislature included the largest number of Black senators and representatives as well as the only Republican majority in the Reconstruction and post-Reconstruction eras. During his tenure, Mullens served on the Privileges and Elections Committee as well as the Federal Relations and Immigration Committees. He also advocated for integrated, state-funded public education. Additionally, he sought to establish the Texas State Police and a militia to subdue violence, often initiated by white Americans against Black Americans, throughout the state. In 1870, the New Era, an African American newspaper, praised his efforts and declared that “[there] is no more earnest worker in the Republican ranks, and no man in his district possesses the confidence of the people to a greater extent than does Mr. Mullens.”

Mullens also worked as a blacksmith in Waco. Local tax rolls convey that he owned $1,174 worth of property, including two lots in the city. County marriage records also report that Mullens married Sallie “Agnes” Downs, a formerly enslaved woman in Texas, on December 26, 1866. Together, they had a daughter named Mary, born prior on April 22, 1858.

On August 6, 1871, Mullens passed away unexpectedly at the age of forty-two. He was buried in Waco at First Street Cemetery, and his elected positions remained unfilled as Reconstruction fell apart in Texas and throughout the country. A result of the Compromise of 1877, Reconstruction ended with an informal agreement between Southern Democrats and the Republican Party. Republicans, seeking Democratic approval of the election of President Rutherford B. Hayes, agreed to remove federal troops stationed in previous Confederate states. Though roughly two thousand Black men held positions at the local, state, and federal levels throughout Reconstruction, those numbers dramatically declined following 1877.

After the Compromise, white Americans overthrew Reconstruction-era governments, disenfranchised Black voters, and removed Black men from public office. In some states, white leaders attempted to eliminate Black politicians’ names from the historical record. As a result, little information remains about many of these men, their time in office, or their lives in general.

In Texas, following Mullens’s passing in 1871, white leaders and voters removed all Black officials from office by 1883. Not until 1966, following the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the election of Barbara Jordan, would Texas be represented by another Black American. Though some documentation remains, many of their legacies remain sparse, including that of Mullens. His story, in some ways, lost—like the Reconstruction efforts of the late nineteenth century.

Note: Different documents contain varied spellings of Shep Mullens’s name. These include Shep, Shepherd, Sheppard, or Shepart, and Mullens or Mullins.

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St. James United Methodist Church, originally a Methodist Episcopal church, has existed almost as long as the city of Waco itself. Founded in 1874 by Anderson Brack, a formerly enslaved man, the congregation started with roughly fifty-three members. On the banks of the Brazos River, they worshipped, communed together, and worked to establish a permanent brick-and-mortar building that would serve as a central location for their Christian community. Along with the church, St. James also established a school that provided education to Black children in the Waco area. As they sought to secure a steady meeting place, though, they faced difficulty and discrimination.

Built in 1889, their original building at Second and Ross Streets was the first brick church for African Americans in Waco. St. James, established after Mt. Zion, was the second African American church in the city. After the city of Waco condemned their new building, they built a larger tabernacle in 1909 in the same location. They worshipped there until 1922. That year, the San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railroad Company purchased the property, citing eminent domain, and the St. James congregation built once more. This time, on Second and Clay Avenue.

Under the leadership of Pastor C. S. Williams, the congregation broke ground on the church in March 1924. Utilizing bricks from their previous tabernacles inside the new structure, St. James memorialized and honored the history of their church. Architect Carleton Adams, who garnered statewide and national attention for his home and building designs in San Antonio, developed plans for the Tudor Gothic-style structure. While members were eager to meet in the new location, the congregation experienced financial strain in the years to come after accumulating $85,000 in debt to construct the building, which took thirty-two years to repay.

At Second and Clay, St. James committed themselves to racial justice initiatives in the community as well as interracial partnerships. During the Great Depression, they offered a daily soup kitchen to Wacoans in need. They also held meetings for the “Waco Forward” movement of the 1920s that launched as a local effort to assist those struggling amid economic stagnation. Waco Forward hoped to improve Waco’s economy and usher in an era of progress and stability. St. James also hosted other interracial events, including concerts and women’s groups, as well as a “Race Relations Sunday” service in February 1945. There, they called for attendees to “build a nation and a world where there shall be no discrimination on the basis of color, creed, or national origin.”

After its formation in 1936, the McLennan County chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) met multiple times at St. James. At an “NAACP Sunday” event in 1951, which occurred during the civil rights movement, the McLennan County chapter formed a plan that addressed local and national needs. They also hosted another notable meeting in 1955, where the organization expressed their support of the “Free by ‘63” campaign. This campaign effort raised funds for numerous legal cases taking place during the movement. Those a part of the NAACP and the church sought to address and end discrimination in Texas and across the country.

Important to Waco and St. James, multiple prominent members worked within and outside of the church. Robert L. Smith, one of the first Black Americans elected to the Texas House of Representatives in 1894, attended St. James. Prior to his arrival in Waco, Smith established the Farmers’ Improvement Society, which aided farmers who had fallen into extensive debt. Inescapable debt particularly impacted previously enslaved people who turned to sharecropping and tenant farming after emancipation. As Smith worked for these communities in Waco, he also served as a steward and legal adviser for the church. J. J. Flewellen and Professor J. S. Henry, principals at Carver High and Kirk Elementary, also attended St. James. Both schools offered educational opportunities to Black students in Waco. Lonnie Morris Belle Hodges, the church’s historian, strove to bring attention to the history of St. James. As the only living descendent of St. James’s charter members with continuing membership, Hodges worked to attain recognition for the history of the congregation and building. In 1986, the building received a Recorded Texas Historical Marker due to her efforts.

The congregation continued to grow over the years, exceeding over six hundred members during their strongest periods. Yet, by 2015, St. James had dwindled once more to fewer than sixty congregants. Deciding to focus more on fellowship and community rather than upkeep of an aging structure, they placed the historic building on the market. The church received a City of Waco Historic Landmark in 2017 and was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on September 12, 2019. St. James remains the only religious structure on the National Register of Historic Places in Waco. The building, purchased by local Wacoans Amy and Lane Murphy, remains a prominent historical landmark for the city. As they transition the church into a restaurant and event space, they plan to preserve the history of the congregation and the building. Members of St. James now meet in another location in Waco, joining with Wesley United Methodist Church each Sunday. There, they continue to commune and worship together. Through the remaining congregation and renovation efforts at Second and Clay, the long history of St. James United Methodist Church persists in Waco.

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On June 19, 1865, enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, heard the news of their freedom. More than two years earlier, President Abraham Lincoln had issued the Emancipation Proclamation to establish the freedom of enslaved people in Confederate States on January 1, 1863. More than two months prior, on April 9, 1865, Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered. Still, many Black people remained enslaved, including approximately 250,000 in Texas. The state offered a haven to many white enslavers since no major battles occurred there throughout the Civil War, and enslavers refused to inform enslaved people of their freedom. Yet on Juneteenth in 1865—the day’s name a combination of “June” and “nineteenth”—Union troops arrived in Galveston, bringing news of the emancipation established in January 1863. There, General Gordon Granger issued General Order No. 3: “The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free.”

Organized by freed Black people in Texas the following year, celebrations of Jubilee Day occurred throughout the state, including Waco. The earliest documented Waco celebration occurred in 1876, which included a two-thousand-person procession led by the Waco Colored Band and local societies, including the Rising Stars and the Young Men’s Club. The groups waved bright-colored banners and wore dazzling uniforms. The parade ended at Waco Creek, in the southern part of the city, where celebrants listened to various speakers and a reading of the Declaration of Independence. Afterward, they danced, sang, and ate together.

Later, in 1913, Black Wacoans organized a celebration at Taborian Park, which included outdoor sports, a picnic, amusement rides, and a balloon release. In the following years, events also included free barbecue, religious services, pageants, softball games, and bicycle races. For Black airmen on James Connally Air Force Base, Juneteenth celebrations included a dance at the Franklin Avenue USO and sporting events at the Elizabeth Lee Center on South Tenth Street. Black employees in Waco also requested the day off from work, and in 1933, Bridge Street, which housed many local Black businesses, closed for part of the day as the community gathered there for a celebratory parade.

Juneteenth celebrations in Waco continued to grow over time. In 1946, the Chicago American Giants and the Memphis Red Sox, both part of the Negro American League, kicked off Juneteenth events at Katy Park, attracting over three thousand fans. These festivities also included broader activist efforts across Texas as Black leaders requested pardons for Black prisoners in the state. As early as June 19, 1925, the governor of Texas granted pardons to forty-five Black prisoners in response to the emancipation celebration day. Later, members of the Texas Legislative Black Caucus advocated for state recognition of the Juneteenth holiday. On June 19, 1979, the bill proposed by Representative Al Edwards of Houston passed, making Texas the first state to establish Juneteenth as a holiday.

Despite this acknowledgement, events that occurred on Juneteenth sometimes highlighted the complex legacies of emancipation. In Limestone County, the town of Mexia regularly hosted one of the largest Juneteenth celebrations in the country, often drawing over twenty thousand people. Those crowds dwindled after 1981, when three young Black men drowned after law enforcement arrested them during celebrations near what locals referred to as Comanche Crossing. Officers crossed Lake Mexia without providing life preservers to Anthony Freeman (18), Carl Baker (19), or Steven Booker (19). The boat began to sink twenty yards from shore, and the three teenagers, two of whom could swim, drowned. The three officers survived, and an all-white jury found them not guilty. The three teenagers’ tragic deaths struck the community hard and impacted Juneteenth celebrations, which now correspond with collective mourning and remembrance of the “Comanche Three.” While Juneteenth remains a celebration of liberation across Texas, such events left many pondering the limits of freedom and justice.

Still, as they did in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Juneteenth celebrations persist in the state and locally in Waco. Juneteenth events include sports competitions, red soda—including Waco’s own Big Red—carnival events, beauty pageants, gospel music performances, and a community-wide parade. Local organizations, including The Heart of Texas Black Chamber of Commerce and the Waco Council of African American Arts, Health & Culture, help coordinate activities throughout the city. These events that occur in Waco and throughout Texas also happen across the country as Americans celebrate emancipation. On June 17, 2021, President Biden signed a bill establishing Juneteenth as a federal holiday. Black Americans, though, have acknowledged and celebrated Juneteenth since 1865. Rejoicing in liberation, Black Wacoans, Texans, and Americans celebrate Juneteenth and recognize still the strides left toward freedom.

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Born the daughter of educators in segregated Mexia, Texas, in 1941, Mae Allison Johnson developed an early understanding of the significance of education and equality. Her parents, Allison Johnson and Eula King, met while working at a small country school called Salem in Teague, Texas. Together, they instilled the value of learning. At sixteen, Mae Johnson graduated Booker T. Washington High School as valedictorian of her class and attended college at Texas Southern University in Houston. There, fascinated by people and interested in working with others, she first thought she wanted to study sociology, but her desire to work closely with people drove her into the field of social work.

During her collegiate years at Texas Southern, she participated in debate and public speaking, traveling across Texas and around the country for competitions. These travel experiences accentuated the prevalence of segregation and discrimination. At a debate competition at Baylor University, Johnson recalled that they stayed in segregated, lower-scale housing near Paul Quinn College and remembered white Wacoans hurling insults and spitting at the Texas Southern students. These racist encounters reinforced her interest in pursuing justice, especially at the local level.

After briefly working at Riverside National Bank, the first African American-owned bank in Houston, she decided to take a social work position at John Sealy Hospital in Galveston, now part of the University of Texas Medical Branch. Her work there motivated her to return to school, and she graduated from Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio with a master’s degree in social work in 1965. Afterward, she relocated to Waco to be near her ailing mother in Teague, and as her mother’s health improved, Johnson moved to work in the civil rights movement.

Previously, while at Texas Southern, she helped connect those arrested in sit-ins to defense attorneys and managed funds for movement efforts. Then, in 1969, she joined the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW) and moved to Mississippi until 1971. Under the auspices of the NCNW, she sought to provide public housing for Mississippians in need, working alongside women like Fannie Lou Hamer in Indianola. Her work at the grassroots further cultivated her desire to serve local communities and meet their needs in tangible ways.

Johnson later returned to Waco, worked for the local Methodist Home, and decided to pursue her doctorate. She graduated with a PhD from the University of Texas at Arlington in 1985. As her professional life progressed, she also married Howard Andrew Jackson, with whom she had a stepdaughter, foster son, adopted daughter, and biological daughter. Motivated by her work in the civil rights movement and with the NCNW, Dr. Mae Jackson grew active in the local Democratic Party. She campaigned for Texas Democrats, including Governor Ann Richards, who later appointed Jackson to the Texas State Board of Pardons and Paroles. There, she aimed to improve racist parole policies in Texas prisons by addressing prison overcrowding, harmful living conditions, and a lack in resources needed to care for incarcerated people.

Locally, she served on the Waco City Council, District I, from 2000 to 2004 before she won the mayoral election in May 2004. Dr. Mae Jackson was the first African American woman to become mayor of Waco. During her time in office, she sought to promote education, economic development, and tourism. She sought to upgrade Waco’s Central Library, expand job opportunities in the city, rejuvenate the downtown area, and renovate the convention center. Further, she hoped to better Waco’s water quality and create improved, equitable housing. Sadly, she passed away during her first term on February 11, 2005, leaving a community in mourning. While her political career was cut short, her legacy lives on. Elected to the Waco City Council in 2018, her daughter, Andrea Jackson Barefield, represents District I. Local government leaders regularly meet in the Dr. Mae Jackson Development Center on Franklin Avenue, named in memoriam, and participate in organizations like the Greater Waco Community Education Alliance, formed from Jackson’s vision for education improvement in McLennan County. Dr. Mae Jackson’s influence on the city persists, along with her visions for equality, improved education, and justice for those in Waco, in Texas, and across the country.

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Two popular amusements at the turn of the twentieth century—staged locomotive collisions and baseball—came together in the life of Crush Holloway. As the story goes, Holloway’s father went to see the Crash at Crush, only to be informed at the event that his wife had gone into labor. He named his son, born the next day, after the train collision, and the child would go on to a successful career as a baseball player in the Negro Leagues. Though debated, it’s likely that “Crush” was the name the ballplayer received at birth rather than earned during his career.

Crush Christopher Columbus Holloway was born the eldest son of Thomas and Dora Holloway in Hillsboro, Texas, on September 16, 1896. The family moved just outside of Waco near Downsville when Holloway was a young boy. Holloway’s father was a teacher and cotton farmer. As the first son, Holloway felt the brunt of his family’s life as cotton farmers and, as a result, developed a strong dislike for the work. Baseball proved an escape. Holloway frequented sandlots around town on Sundays to play games until dusk, and during the week he worked on his swing using a broomstick and pebbles. The boy idolized players like John Franklin “Home Run” Baker and Ty Cobb. When not playing ball or working in the cotton fields, Holloway likely attended the Mt. Pleasant School in Downsville.

Holloway desired to leave Waco, and baseball eventually served as his ticket. Though he was drafted and wanted to serve in World War I, the conflict ended before he could do so. In 1919, a local businessman approached Holloway to join the Waco Black Navigators. However, the Black Navigators struggled in their inaugural season in the Texas Colored League. When they moved to San Antonio and became the Black Aces, Holloway followed. After playing alongside future Hall of Famer Biz Mackey in Waco and San Antonio, Holloway received the invitation to join him in the Negro National League and play for the Indianapolis ABCs in 1921. Holloway changed from second base to left field, and during his first season he batted a laudable .323. His aggressive base running with sharpened cleats earned him both fear and admiration from fellow players. By the end of his three seasons with the ABCs, Holloway earned a modest $150/month—approximately $2,300 today. Likely a salary dispute propelled Holloway to move to the Baltimore Black Sox in 1924.

Holloway spent the majority of his professional career in Baltimore, and he chose to return there after his retirement. For eight years he played in the Black Sox outfield. Over that time, he batted a solid .274. The Black Sox also regularly played against the white International League Baltimore Orioles, proving competitive, sometimes even superior. Sent to the Hilldale Daisies in 1929, Holloway spent the latter half of his career bouncing from club to club with stints on the Detroit Stars and Newark Eagles. Additionally, Holloway barnstormed in the offseason throughout his career. He retired in 1937 and settled in Baltimore. He worked odd jobs and eventually opened a tailor shop with Buelah, his wife since 1921. In the 1940s and 50s, to supplement his income, Holloway umpired local black baseball games and was a member of the Negro Professional Umpires Association. His love of baseball remained throughout his life.

Crush Holloway died in Baltimore from cancer on June 24, 1972. Though he fell into popular obscurity, baseball enthusiasts, scholars, and players kept Holloway’s memory alive. He enjoyed a statistically average career but made an impression through his base running. Holloway embodied the quick, assertive, and daring play that characterized much of black baseball. He, like so many other black players, excelled despite segregation and helped change the sport. Crush Holloway took his game from the cotton fields of Waco all the way to the big leagues.

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As “America’s pastime,” baseball also imbibed the country’s original sin: racism. This scourge haunted the game from its earliest days, but by the start of the twentieth century the formal segregation of baseball was complete and remained so until 1947. Nevertheless, black baseball persisted, leaving an indelible mark on the sport. While black baseball in Waco shared similarities with the game elsewhere in the nation, the players it molded and its local legacies deserve recognition. To remember baseball in the city and at Katy Park without its black teams and players is to tell only part of the story.

Starting in the 1870s, black baseball in Waco operated independently but laid the groundwork for future developments. Waco fielded several unnamed teams from the 1870s to the 1890s, one of which joined the Texas Colored Baseball League in 1888. Unfortunately, league play never materialized. From 1897 to 1898, the Waco Yellow Jackets played regionally at their home field at Golden Gate Park off of South First Street. The Yellow Jackets dominated due to the superior pitching of a preacher’s son from Calvert, Texas, named Andrew “Rube” Foster. Waco, with its booming cotton industry, presented Foster with a larger market to showcase his skills and launched his legendary career. His “fadeaway” pitch (screwball) changed baseball, and Foster’s belief in black baseball led to the formation of the professional Negro National League in 1920. As baseball entered the twentieth century, the game retained its rural connections but expanded in urban areas.

Waco produced several teams and players in the 1910s and 20s that developed the game at the semipro and professional levels. Just as Rube Foster left Texas to pursue baseball in Chicago, Waco produced two future ballplayers who would go on to play for the Negro Leagues Foster inaugurated: Andrew Lewis Cooper and Crush Holloway. Cooper, a southpaw pitcher, spent the majority of his professional baseball career as a player and manager of the Kansas City Monarchs. An outfielder known for his assertive base running, Holloway played professional ball with the Indianapolis ABCs and the Baltimore Black Sox. He began his career in 1919 with the Waco Black Navigators, the city’s premier black baseball club and a member of the Texas Colored League that played their games at Katy Park. The lives and careers of Holloway and Cooper followed the flow of the Great Migration as African Americans left the rural South for the industrial North. This movement of African Americans affected Waco’s ability to consistently provide a market for semipro black baseball. It dropped out of Texas Colored League after only a year and later sporadically participated in the Texas-Oklahoma-Louisiana League. Nevertheless, smaller recreational teams like the Waco Black Taborians played regular games at Taborian Park on South Second Street and on special occasions like Juneteenth. Multiple levels of organization continued to characterize black baseball in Waco for the next few decades.

Into the 1930s, black baseball endured in Waco exhibiting innovations to the game eventually adopted by white teams. Now a part of the Texas-Oklahoma-Louisiana League, Waco’s Black Cardinals achieved minor league status in 1930. They participated in a historic first in Texas baseball when they played the state’s initial night game in May 1930 against the visiting Kansas City Monarchs. Within weeks, Katy Park put up permanent lights for its white team, the Waco Cubs. The introduction of night baseball—because it allowed players to earn more money by playing more games—emerged out of black baseball to impact the entire sport. Additionally, black baseball introduced the practices of numbered uniforms and utilizing protective gear. The latter became a necessity due to the quick, aggressive style of play that characterized black baseball, in contrast to the white game that hinged on homeruns. While the historical record remains spotty, it appears that black baseball for the duration of its existence in Waco welcomed white spectators in a separate section. Though formally segregated, these innovations illustrate the cross-pollination that occurred between black and white baseball, advancing the game.

It was also during the 1930s that another Waco product, George T. Walker, made his debut in the Negro Leagues. Walker pitched for the Homestead Greys and the Kansas City Monarchs from 1937 to 1943. While his was not an exceptional career, the right-hander shared in the successes of his legendary teammates, Satchel Paige and Buck O’Neil. Walker continued to play baseball into the 1950s, but his career shows how the desegregation of baseball in 1947 led to the decline of the Negro Leagues and black semipro baseball. In Waco, the destruction of Katy Park from the 1953 tornado also contributed to the end of local black baseball. While it resulted in obvious benefits, the integration of baseball in Waco and around the country also meant the loss of a significant African American institution.

The semipro and independent status of black baseball in Waco does not diminish its importance. These tiers helped develop the game and its talent. Surveying this topic at the local level illustrates how national matters of racism and sports functioned in our community.

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Music producers generally work behind the scenes garnering little public recognition. Some, like Phil Spector and Quincy Jones, earned acclaim outside the industry; however, others faded into obscurity. Tom Wilson, one of these overlooked figures and a contemporary of Spector and Jones, matched them in influence. A musical alchemist who coaxed new sounds out of legendary musicians, Wilson spearheaded innovative directions for jazz and rock and roll in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s.

Church music and education undergirded the Wacoan family into which Tom Wilson Jr. was born on March 25, 1931. His father served as the choir director at New Hope Baptist Church, where his grandfather, a college professor, was a founding member. Though he only played the trombone, choir participation and family jam sessions nurtured in the young Wilson a love of music. These musical mash-ups often occurred at his educator grandfather’s rug laundry, where Wilson also learned to work hard. It was this family belief in achievement that propelled Wilson from Fisk University to Harvard where he graduated in 1954 with a degree in economics.

While in Boston, Wilson dove into its jazz scene. He deejayed for Harvard’s radio station, WHRB, where jam sessions and his involvement in the Harvard New Jazz Society helped cultivate a love for the experimental genre. Working at WHRB, Wilson later stated, was the job that most greatly influenced his later success. Jazz was undergoing an evolution, and Wilson wanted to capture it. So after graduating, he started the aptly named Transition Records. Wilson possessed an ear for pioneering sounds, locating unknown artists like Sun Ra who pushed the boundaries of jazz. Over four years at Transition Records, Wilson recorded over twenty albums with musicians like John Coltrane and Cecil Taylor. Wilson’s involvement in all aspects of album production and positive reviews didn’t, however, translate into financial success, so he sold the label in 1957.

He worked for several labels in artists and repertoire before landing at Columbia in the early 1960s. It was at Columbia that Wilson left an indelible mark on the music industry. Though a novel practice at the time, Wilson took the initiative to locate new talent. This practice led him to a struggling folk duo by the name of Simon and Garfunkel. They recorded with Wilson but broke up until the producer’s surreptitious addition of electric instruments on “The Sound of Silence” brought them massive success and contributed to the development of folk-rock. Wilson also worked with iconic troubadour Bob Dylan on several of his albums, notably Bringing It All Back Home. On that record, Wilson encouraged a more electric sound, and with songs like “Subterranean Homesick Blues,” helped launch Dylan into a new phase of his career. The legendary track “Like a Rolling Stone” was also a Dylan and Wilson collaboration. Wilson then rode this wave of success into a job at Verve/MGM in Los Angeles.

In his new position, Wilson continued to experiment. His initial signing was the eclectic sound of Frank Zappa and the Mothers Of Invention. To his collection of artists Wilson also added the Velvet Underground. The band’s psychedelic tone and graphic lyrics meshed well with Wilson’s penchant for testing musical limits. Wilson went out on his own in 1968, launching a production company which accompanied his short-lived radio program “Music Factory” and two publishing companies: Terrible Tunes and Maudlin Melodies. Such a move made sense for a man at the forefront of the 1960s music scene.

Tom Wilson embodied the 1960s. A 1968 New York Times feature on Wilson described his clothing and interior design as encompassing the smoothly audacious style emblematic of the period. Wilson managed to be “far out” with his artists and productions, but kept his personal life and habits more private. His wife and children, while spending some time around the studios, remained a distinct entity, apart from his work. Music, he told his son, creates a “respite” from the demands of life. Journalists described Wilson, a study of contrasts, as “enigmatic” and a “master dissembler.” He was a man who had his finger on America’s musical pulse but also seemed to hover above it.

By the 1970s, however, Wilson produced less. The music he did develop didn’t sell as well, so he turned his attention to creating music for movies. Earlier Wilson had produced a jazz version of the West Side Story soundtrack (Bossa Nova) and Dylan song on the soundtrack for Easy Rider. Wilson remained in the music industry but pursued this new direction. He died at age forty-seven of a heart attack, a complication of his Marfan syndrome, on September 6, 1978. Only in death did Wilson return to Waco where he rests in the Doris Miller Memorial Park. Wilson was shrouded by his brief career and notable contemporaries, but current efforts like Producer Tom Wilson and Invisible Icon seek to posthumously recognize Wilson for his musical impact.

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Long before President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965, attorney Richard D. (R.D.) Evans waged the fight for civil rights from his Waco law office. As Waco’s first African American attorney, he became one of the most influential early twentieth century civil rights lawyers in Texas.

Born in Burleson County, circa 1873, Evans graduated from Prairie View Industrial College and worked as schoolteacher in Burleson County until 1909. Three years later, he graduated from Howard University’s law school and returned to Texas. Evans practiced law briefly in Brenham before settling in Waco in 1913. Slowly building a career serving the legal needs of Waco’s Black community, Evans soon established himself as the champion of Black Texans’ voting rights.

While he handled cases regarding jury selection and other civil rights, Evans rose to prominence constructing the legal challenge to the Texas white primary system. Disenfranchisement in primary elections and general opposition toward any African-American voting prompted Evans to take the case of Waco grocer E.L. Sublett in February 1919. In Sublett v. Duke, Sublett sued the Waco Democratic Executive Committee for its failure to allow African-Americans to vote in primaries. Judge George Clark ruled in favor of Sublett and Evans, a stunning decision that temporarily expanded voting rights. His success in defeating the white primary led Evans to head the Texas NAACP’s efforts to challenge the disenfranchisement at the federal level. Simultaneously, Texas moved to reinstate the white primary in 1922. Two years later, Evans brought a white primary for review by the Supreme Court. Love v. Nixon proved unsuccessful, but the language of the Justice Holmes’ majority opinion left open the possibility of a future challenge.

Evans' victories and defeats provided the precedents upon which the NAACP secured voting rights for African Americans beginning in the 1940s. In the wake of Love, the Texas NAACP, and eventually the national office, sought to make defeating the white primary one of its primary objectives. It was a struggle in which Evans remained deeply invested. The white primary persisted despite two successful Supreme Court cases—in 1927 and 1932—brought by El Paso doctor Lawrence Nixon. However, the Texas NAACP also expanded in size and scope during the 1930s due to the efforts of Evans, Juanita Craft, and A. Maceo Smith. After years of successfully litigating civil rights cases and active leadership, Evans became president of the Texas NAACP and in 1936 was elected to NAACP national board of directors. Connecting to the national NAACP brought its attorney Thurgood Marshall to Texas in late 1938 to help develop a federal legal strategy to combat the white primary. In 1944, it was Marshall’s Supreme Court case for Lonnie Smith in Smith v. Allwright that ended the over twenty year reign of the white primary in Texas.

Unfortunately, R.D. Evans did not live to see this victory. He conducted his litigation on behalf of civil rights during the 1920s and 30s under constant threat of violence to himself and his family. Still he persisted in that work. On June 26, 1938, a train in downtown Waco collided with a car driven by Evans, killing him. The circumstances surrounding Evans' death remain dubious, but likely unresolvable. He is buried in Greenwood Cemetery. Evans’ life-long dedication to civil rights made him a seminal figure in securing equal voting rights for African-Americans in Texas. When President Johnson signed the 1965 Voting Rights Act it served as the culmination of years of grassroots efforts by Evans and many others to ensure the voting rights of all Americans, regardless of color.

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Despite many obstacles, Robert Gilbert offered “no excuses” when he found himself at the forefront of enacting racial integration and advancing civil rights in Waco. His efforts left an indelible mark on the city and Baylor University.

He was born on December 27, 1941, the fourth child of the Rev. B. F. Gilbert and his wife, Fannie Mae. The Gilbert household prized faith in God, education, and community service. Attending Waco’s segregated schools, Gilbert wanted to be a lawyer advancing the rights of African Americans. After graduating from A. J. Moore High School in 1960, he enrolled at Paul Quinn College. Following several years of study at Paul Quinn, Gilbert and his teachers realized a future legal career required he obtain a degree from Baylor University, which had only recently—in November 1963—voted to integrate.

Administrative and legal decisions do not generate immediate cultural change, a reality that confronted Gilbert as he began his studies at Baylor in summer 1965. The alienation and animosity he felt as a child growing up near the campus continued to form a large part of his experience as a student. He experienced isolation from his classmates, and while some faculty treated him with dignity, others proved overtly racist. Gilbert majored in history, which he enjoyed, but he soon acknowledged that a legal career was increasingly unlikely. For most of his adolescence, Gilbert resisted pastoral ministry, but soon the call to preach became too acute to ignore. In addition, doctors advised him that his poor health could not handle the stresses of practicing law.

Since the age of fourteen, Gilbert suffered from various types of arthritis that left him in constant pain and with impaired mobility. In his teens, it proved manageable with only an occasional flare-up. However, in July 1963, his condition deteriorated rapidly. Gilbert recovered and returned to college, though he now required a cane for support. Later on, joint deterioration led to numerous surgeries and eventually put him in a wheelchair. The visible specter of his arthritis plagued Gilbert for his entire life, but it also became the source of his testimony and vocation. Grappling with his arthritis proved God’s way of grabbing hold of Gilbert, calling him to a life of ministry and teaching, as well as instilling in him the faith and endurance required to overcome all impediments that lay ahead.

Gilbert’s faith-filled perseverance equipped him to break barriers and gave him an unquenchable thirst for justice. On June 2, 1967, Robert Gilbert became the first African American student to graduate from Baylor. By virtue of alphabetical order, Gilbert preceded his classmate Barbara Walker, who that day became Baylor’s first female African American graduate. After his graduation, Gilbert continued pioneering as the first black teacher at the all-white Tennyson Middle School. Another first included his summer role as assistant director of Baylor’s Upward Bound program to help train low-income students for college. Gilbert carried on all this work while also actively engaging in pastoral ministry.

To enrich his ministry, Gilbert returned to Baylor in 1970 to pursue a graduate degree in religion. However, another devastating turn in his health in 1971 left him unable to finish his studies, but not to pastor. He succeeded his father into the pulpits of Baptist churches in Bremond and Chilton, before in 1978, beginning a more than decade-long ministry at Waco’s Carver Park Missionary Baptist Church. Under his leadership, the congregation grew exponentially. Gilbert’s dynamic sermons and visible witness attracted people to him and to the gospel. His life held the power to convict and inspire, not only the people in his congregations, but all Wacoans as well.

The 1970s saw Gilbert take up his trailblazing mantel and use his status in the community to advocate for civil rights. Upset about the glacial pace of integration in Waco schools after the 1954 Brown decision, Gilbert served as the plaintiff in the NAACP case against the Waco Independent School District. His suit, combined with a similar case from Waco’s Hispanic community, became the 1973 Arvizu v. Waco ISD decision mandating the integration of several racially identifiable schools in Waco. In 1976, he was elected the first black member of Waco’s school board. Outside of education, Gilbert helmed the Association for Selective Career Opportunities that aimed to advance the hiring of minorities in fields where they were underrepresented. His experiences at the forefront of integration made him a catalyst for creating opportunities for other African Americans in Waco.

When he died on November 11, 1992, Robert Gilbert left a rich legacy of ministry and activism. In the last years of his life, through pain and numerous health struggles, he maintained his pastoral ministry, while also advocating for Waco and Baylor to diversify hiring. Today Gilbert’s communities honor his impact. For example, the Waco NAACP awards scholarships to high school graduates named for the Gilbert family. Captured by his 1988 autobiography title, No Excuses Accepted, Gilbert believed everyone was capable of achieving their goals, no matter the impediments. Grounded in faith and in pursuit of justice, he testified to that belief with his life, calling others to do the same.

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Beginning in 1945, the sounds of big bands, the blues, and rock blended on the dance floor of East Waco’s Walker’s Auditorium.

Continually looking for ways to serve his community, African American entrepreneur Herbert Walker founded the club. Prior to opening the venue, Mr. Walker provided his neighbors with leisure and transportation through his taxi stand and stables. Later he added a BBQ pit and apartment buildings to his business portfolio. As the only establishment of its kind open to blacks, Walker’s Auditorium served as a prominent social spot for Waco’s African American community. Its pea green, maroon, and grey interior was complemented with elegant furnishings, a sizable dance floor, pool tables, and a mirrored bar that offered patrons drinks and entrées. Mr. Walker told a local paper he envisioned the spot as offering “Wacoans a good place to go for amusement.”

Walker’s Auditorium operated as part of the “Chitlin’ Circuit,” a cross-country touring route used by black entertainers prevented by segregation from playing in white-only locations. A network of black-owned and -patronized businesses, the circuit created an opportunity for African American artists to freely express themselves and their experiences. By being a stop on this route, Walker’s Auditorium connected blacks in Central Texas to national trends in African American social and cultural life. It fueled creativity but was a grueling lifestyle. Musical acts such as Ike and Tina Turner, James Brown, B.B. King, and Etta James, all of whom would go on to greater success, played Walker’s Auditorium for gigs of a night or two when they traveled through Texas in the 1950s and 60s. They went on to other clubs, but some of the talent drawn to Waco by Walker’s Auditorium decided to stay in the area.

In 1963, Herbert Walker invited Louisiana-born blues musician Classie Ballou to lead his house band. Ballou played music all across the world, but his growing family made Walker’s invitation of localized work appealing. As often as six nights a week, Ballou provided the soundtrack at Walker’s Auditorium. When business diminished for Walker’s Auditorium and the rest of the Chitlin’ Circuit, Ballou chose to remain in Waco playing regular gigs around town.

Outside its primary function as a music venue, Walker’s Auditorium hosted holiday parties, debutant balls, parades, and various celebrations. Fraternities and sororities like Alpha Phi Alpha used the club for dances and gatherings. In 1953, it held a fundraiser for the March of Dimes. Civic clubs and organizations also used the space for business functions and teas. Walker’s Auditorium provided Waco’s African American community with a multipurpose venue suited both for amusement and formal meetings.

The patrons of Walker’s Auditorium, however, were not exclusively African American. White Wacoans, and many Baylor students, also frequented the club. “Mingling” between whites and blacks occurred more frequently by the 1960s, than in previous decades of the club’s operation. This shift resulted in broader acknowledgement of the club by all Waco’s citizens. Community members, like state senator Murray Watson, met with Mr. Walker and held him in high esteem. Additionally, local and student newspapers, whose racialized reporting on Walker’s Auditorium early on tended to revolve around petty crime, now increasingly carried advertisements and other news about the establishment in the 1960s and early 1970s. It is in this era that it became a community institution, expanding Mr. Walker’s vision to its fullest extent.

The advent of the civil rights movement, the closing of James Connally Air Force Base, and competition from other entertainment eventually hurt Walker’s Auditorium. Like many venues on the Chitlin’ Circuit, it fell into disrepair. In 1977, Walker’s Auditorium came under new management, but only a year later it ceased operating. By the 2000s, nothing remained where the legendary venue once stood. Through over three decades of operation, Walker’s Auditorium gave Wacoans, particularly its black citizens, a place to relax and celebrate.

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During the 1950s and 1960s, Rev. Marvin C. Griffin strove to bring the Christian gospel to bear upon the civil rights struggle in Waco. As minister of New Hope Baptist Church from 1951 to 1969, Reverend Griffin preached a message of spiritual vitality and social action, advocating for racial equality during a period of heightened tensions among Waco’s white, black, and Hispanic communities. Griffin’s unswerving emphasis on racial justice and reconciliation established him as a respected leader throughout Central Texas.

The future minister was born in Wichita, Kansas, in 1923 and, after several years in Oklahoma, spent his later childhood and adolescence in Dallas, Texas. Like many African American families in their community, the Griffin family suffered the effects of race-based inequality. The scarcity of Depression-era jobs for black men meant that Griffin’s mother supported the family on wages from her job as housekeeper in a white home. The young Griffin, however, felt called to become a preacher and exhibited academic promise at an early age.

After high school, Griffin entered Bishop College—at that time the only Texas institution offering a degree in religion to African American students. There he met Lois King, whom he married in 1944 and with whom he would serve churches and communities throughout Texas for over six decades. After graduating from Bishop in 1943, Griffin earned a bachelor of divinity in theology from the famed Oberlin College in Ohio. Oberlin’s emphasis on the social implications of the Christian message shaped Griffin’s approach to civil rights in the years to come. Griffin graduated from Oberlin in 1947 and soon took a position as director of city missions for the Southern Baptist Convention’s Home Mission Board in Dallas, Texas. There, the young graduate worked with people in need from white and black neighborhoods alike. In this way, Griffin’s diverse childhood, educational, and professional experiences allowed him to cultivate relationships across racial and economic lines.

In 1951, Waco’s New Hope Baptist Church invited Griffin to fill in as interim pastor when its own minister, Dr. Joseph Newton Jenkins, fell ill. This temporary position became permanent when Jenkins passed away, and the twenty-seven-year-old seminary graduate found himself the pastor of one of Waco’s oldest and most prominent African American churches. The young minister took to the position quickly, however, pioneering a radio ministry and citywide transportation system to the church on Sunday. All the while, Griffin devoted himself to theological study; in 1955 he became the first African American to receive a master of religious education from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Griffin also brought a renewed emphasis on the social resonances of the Christian gospel, preaching the importance of advocating for justice in the wake of pervasive racial discrimination. In Waco, the new pastor entered an environment in which white hostility was prevalent and in which local blacks were hesitant to confront racial divides for fear that their jobs, social standing, and physical safety might be jeopardized.

Their fears were not unfounded. When initial efforts to integrate Waco schools following the Brown v. Board of Education decision were stymied by public backlash, it appeared that the desegregation project had reached a standstill. White leaders took no initiative toward implementing the federal ruling, and area blacks balked at taking any serious form of action. For the remainder of the decade, little progress was made in the dismantling of legalized segregation.

Thanks to leaders such as Marvin Griffin, the tide began to turn during the 1960s, bringing about an integration that proved far more peaceful—albeit far more gradual—than many cities in the South. As the nationwide struggle for civil rights grew more visible and more tumultuous, Waco minorities became increasingly vocal in their calls for desegregation and equal access to employment. Leading white Chamber of Commerce members—dubbed “The Committee of Fifty”—were anxious to avoid the protests, sit-ins, and violence plaguing much of the South. When the committee expressed the desire to cooperate with Waco’s black community leaders in desegregating the city at long last, Marvin Griffin set to work forming a council comprised of seven prominent African American men and women. With Griffin as its chairman, the council sought input from all corners of Waco’s black population to formulate a list of the most pressing racial issues to be remedied. These included public accommodations, the use of recreational facilities, access to jobs, and representation on boards and commissions.

The Committee of Fifty proved open to cooperation. It and Griffin’s council were careful, however, to keep their deliberations secret, lest they arouse anger from the white community. Thus, in 1961, they privately crafted a plan for the gradual and quiet desegregation of Waco businesses, cooperating with journalists to ensure that the press would refrain from reporting on the committee’s existence and the instances of desegregation that followed. Facility by facility, the group worked with business owners and the designated African American citizens—often Griffin and the members of his council—who would patronize each establishment. By means of enforcement, several members of the committee threatened to fire employees who did not carry out the new policy of desegregation. By 1963, popular Waco eating establishments, hospitals, and department stores had desegregated in this manner. Additionally, Baylor president Abner McCall—a member of the Committee of Fifty—began to take steps in the desegregation of Baylor University, which was finally desegregated in 1964.

Public desegregation, however, was only the first step in a long and arduous road toward a more racially equitable society. Accordingly, Griffin remained unwavering in his advocacy for Waco’s black community even after this initial wave of desegregation. The pastor worked to secure job opportunities for Waco’s African American citizens, and he also continued to fight for the desegregation of the Waco Independent School District, which would ultimately desegregate by federal court order in the early 1970s. Griffin also continued to facilitate racial reconciliation in local churches as well, exchanging pulpits with white preachers such as Rhea Gray and holding interracial book clubs in homes to facilitate productive dialogue on issues of race. In the political sphere, Griffin worked to expand black voter registration and galvanized his congregation and others into a politically active community.

In 1969, Griffin accepted an offer to become pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Austin, Texas—a position in which he served until his retirement on July 31, 2011. Here the twin goals of Christian faithfulness and social action remained paramount in Griffin’s ministry. In 1998, the pastor spearheaded the creation of the East Austin Economic Development Corporation, which offered crucial services to underprivileged populations. The spiritual and social leader continued to advance in learning and education even in latter decades of his career; in 1990, Griffin received his doctor of ministry from Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary. Throughout his long and storied life, Griffin never wavered in his insistence that the Christian message was inseparable from the issue of racial justice and community involvement, and he continued to encourage Christian faithfulness and social activism among his congregants at Ebenezer.

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Eddie Bernice Johnson is a champion of minority and women’s rights representing Texas in the United States House of Representatives. Not only that, she fights to support the sciences and women in STEM (science, technology, engineering, medicine) fields.

Though a public servant of the 30th district in Dallas County, Eddie started her life in Waco, Texas. Born to Edward and Lillie Mae Johnson in Waco on December 3, 1935 (her childhood home pinned below on map), she attended A. J. Moore High School, the only school in Waco for African Americans at the time, where she graduated in 1952, third on the honor roll. Just as she would be very active in the community later in life, she participated in many organizations at A. J. Moore as well, including the Dramatic Art Club, J. A. Kirk Chorus, Book Lovers’ Club, National Honor Society, Student Council, library staff, Elm Wood Y-Teens, and editorial staff of the Moore Highlight.

Eddie came to her love of learning and community involvement naturally, as her parents emphasized such values. Her parents stressed education and culture, reading novels to their children from a young age and taking them to plays at Baylor University. These options were more limited, though, as the family could only attend plays on the designated “black days” at the theater. Both Edward and Lillie Mae then became activists after African Americans succeeded in breaking the state’s white primary system in 1944. Committed Democrats, they worked hard to educate fellow African Americans on the importance of voting and helped to get them to the polls. Eddie affectionately referred to her mother as a “little crusader,” fighting to better the rights of African Americans in Texas and in Waco. Her parents’ dedication to hard work and views of progress led Eddie to believe neither her race nor gender should ever hold her back.

Eddie then attended St. Mary’s College at Notre Dame and received a nursing degree. She would follow this degree with two more, a bachelor of science in nursing from Texas Christian University, and two decades later a master’s in public health from Southern Methodist University. Eddie was hired right out of St. Mary’s as a psychiatric nurse at the Veterans Administration (VA) hospital in Dallas. Little did she know, the administration did not realize she was black when they hired her. Upon her arrival, she had to fight to keep her job, and she was not allowed to live in the dormitory with the other nurses. She endured extreme racism from her colleagues and was continually denied the ability to help with projects. But soon her work spoke for itself, and a year and a half later Eddie was promoted to chief nurse, a position she would hold at the VA in Dallas for sixteen years. Early in her tenure at the VA she also met and married Lacy Kirk Johnson and had one son, Dawrence Kirk.

After the birth of her son, Eddie had her hands full with her job, her husband, and now a child, but she soon added activism to the list. While shopping in Dallas, she was barred from trying on a hat in a store because of her race. She discovered that as a rule black women were not allowed to try on certain clothing items in stores before buying them, and this infuriated her. She immediately organized a boycott of the department store and others with fifty other African American women. The boycott worked quickly, and soon those stores were allowing black women to try on items before purchase. Eddie had her first taste of activism, and she turned next to ardently supporting African American politicians. She would famously push young Dawrence, who goes by Kirk, in a stroller while passing out campaign materials for various African American candidates in shopping center parking lots.

Though this involvement was a far cry from running for office herself, circumstances soon changed for Eddie. After a painful divorce, a friend suggested that Eddie run for the Texas House. She originally rebuffed the idea, worried about caring for her son and maintaining the stability her career as a nurse provided, but the seed had been planted. The final push came in 1972 when Stanley Marcus of Neiman Marcus offered her an executive assistant job if she would run for office. Kirk even took cooking classes at school to be able to help his mother at home during her campaign. Eddie Bernice was officially set to run for House District 33.

Eddie was clearly the underdog with only $5,000 and no manpower. She set up shop in her own dining room, making campaign calls herself and going door to door with Kirk. She emphasized to the African American community that she was ready to fight for their rights, campaigning on her prior role as president of the National Council of Negro Women among other civic organizations. She also emphasized her career as a nurse and her service of veterans, wanting to fight for better health care if she were elected. She said of her campaign, “I [was] interested solely in the people and in reflecting the needs of the constituency.” Reflect her constituents’ needs she did, and she won in a landslide to became the first black woman to serve in an elected office in Dallas. From there she was the first African American woman vice chair of the Texas State Democratic Convention and helped to form the Black Legislative Caucus. She was also chosen to chair the House Committee on Labor, the first woman to ever hold this position. Her main issues of focus were health care, education and science, public housing, and women’s rights. Eddie’s work in the legislature did not go unnoticed, and after three terms in the House she was called up by the Carter administration in 1977 to be regional director of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, the first woman and first African American in this position. After serving faithfully, her tenure ended with Carter’s defeat and she took a hiatus from politics.

But the call to serve came again in 1986 when Eddie ran for and won the senatorial position for the 23rd district of Texas. She was the first Dallas woman and first African American elected to the Texas Senate since Reconstruction. Her concerns continued to be people oriented, as she focused on issues of health care, housing, race, gender, economic development, and employment. She served in the finance and education committees and chaired the subcommittee on health and human services. Opportunity then came knocking once more in 1991 when Eddie was chair of the subcommittee of congressional redistricting. The committee’s efforts created a new 30th district, one composed of mostly minority voters, for which Eddie decided to run in 1993. She again scored an astounding victory—107,830 votes to 37,853 votes—becoming the first nurse elected to the US Congress. Her work in Congress mirrored her work in the state legislature and her focus remained on equality and advancement for all people. Even after accusations of gerrymandering led to a Supreme Court ruling against the Texas legislature, Eddie continued to win her seat for the redrawn 30th district. She has served on and led several committees, and she is currently in her thirteenth term at the age of eighty-three.

Eddie Bernice Johnson has lived a life of many firsts and paved the way for many women and African Americans in politics. Her emphasis on STEM education, women and minority rights, and more have changed the face of Dallas County, and Waco is proud to claim her as one of its own.

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James Andrew Harris shook the science world in 1969 for two reasons. First, he co-discovered elements 104 and 105 on the periodic table, a massive accomplishment. Second, he was the first African American in history to discover an element. James Harris was a true pioneer, and he worked hard his entire life to make room for African Americans in the sciences.

Harris was born in Waco, Texas, on March 26, 1932. He attended A. J. Moore High (pinned here) in Waco until middle school (despite the nature of the name, the school served Kindergarten through twelfth-grade), but after his parents divorced, Harris moved to Oakland, California, with his mother. There he graduated from McClymond High School. But Harris did not stay in California for long. After graduating from high school, he moved back to Texas to attend Huston-Tillotson College (HTC) and pursue a degree in chemistry. After graduating in 1953, Harris served two years in the United States Army. After his short career as a sergeant, he married his HTC sweetheart, Helen, in 1957.

Upon entering civilian life in 1955, Harris set out to find a job and use his degree, but that proved much more difficult than he would have liked. Most employers not only refused to hire Harris, they were shocked he would even apply as an African American for a job in chemistry. Harris remembered one such experience vividly, recalling in a 1973 interview, “I was even given a job test simple enough for elementary school kids— basic addition and subtraction. I told the secretary I didn't need a job that badly.” Other secretaries simply assumed he was applying to be a janitor or suggested that he did so when he mentioned chemistry. Despite these setbacks and the culture of Jim Crow America, Harris did not give up, and his perseverance was rewarded when he landed a job at Tracerlab in Richmond, California, where he worked in commercial research. After five years at Tracerlab, Harris decided to move on and joined the Lawrence Radiation Lab (Lawrence Berkeley Lab), an affiliate of the University of California’s Department of Energy.

This lab would prove to be the theater for Harris’s success. He was teamed up with a renowned scientist of the Manhattan project, Albert Ghiorso, and the men set to work to see if they could discover (i.e. produce) new elements. The process by which they did this was complex. The basic method was to bombard certain atomic targets with different elements in an accelerator. This would allow the men to isolate and identify individual new elements at the atomic level. Ghiorso was largely responsible for creating the machines and Harris became the master of making the atomic targets. The atomic targets had to be pure, and, because of this, making them was a tedious and precise process. Harris’s colleagues declared that he was undoubtedly the best target-maker they had ever and would ever work with, making his contribution instrumental. With Ghiorso’s machines and Harris’s targets, the two men identified element 104 for the first time in 1969. They named the element Rutherfordium after British physicist Earnest Rutherford. Harris was officially the first African American to discover a new element, and he did it as the only person in his lab without a PhD as well.

After changing the bombarding element from carbon to nitrogen in 1970, Harris and Ghiorso discovered element 105, commonly referred to today as Dubnium. However, this was not the original name chosen by the two men. They had chosen the name Hahnium after German chemist Otto Hahn, but they had to cede the naming right to Russian scientists from the town of Dubna, from where the element received its official name. The reason was because both Harris’s lab and the Russian lab had identified elements 104 and 105 around the same time. After the naming controversy had been raging for over twenty years, the teams were required by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry in 1997 to divvy up the naming rights: 104 was given the American choice of Rutherfordium and 105 the Russian choice of Dubnium (though the original Russian choice had been Neilsbohrium after Danish nuclear physicist Neils Bohr).

After catapulting to the forefront of scientific innovation because of his discoveries, Harris worked to ensure that other African American children could enjoy the same opportunities. He was awarded an honorary doctorate from his alma mater in 1973, and he did not want to waste the chance to do something good with his acclaim. Harris traveled to schools and universities across the nation to talk to young African American students, especially those from disadvantaged communities, and recruit them to the sciences. His dedication led to awards from the Urban League, the National Organization for the Professional Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers, the City of Richmond, Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Black Dignity Science Institute, and the National Organization for Equal Opportunity in Education. Harris was even part of the "Black Pioneers" exhibit at the Oakland Museum, and he was inducted into the Black College Hall of Fame in Atlanta.

Harris retired early in 1988 at the age of fifty-six. In his retirement he kept up with his community service efforts, along with many rounds of golf and spending time with Helen and his five children. He passed away on December 12, 2000, from an unknown but sudden illness.

James Harris started his education and his life here in Waco, and he went on to change both the scientific community and the black community. Harris is still remembered today as an African American innovator and hero who not only blazed the trail himself, but who worked hard to make sure other black students could follow in his footsteps. Nuclear scientist Darleane Hoffman said of Harris, “From the first time I met him in the early sixties to the last time on the day he passed away, he was upbeat, cheerful, and a pleasure to be around.”

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In 1852, John Robinson arrived in Central Texas, from Demopolis, Alabama, with his family and six slaves, founding what would soon become known as Robinsonville. Two years later, his brother Levi joined him, bringing his own family and an additional four slaves. Among Levi’s slaves was a man named (Jim) Orand Bonner. According to family lore, Levi sent Orand and several other men to a Mill in Jefferson County to pick up lumber. While at the Mill, Orand met a slave woman named Millie Stewart. The two married and Millie became the nanny for the Robinson family. Millie had three children from a previous marriage, and would have several more children with Orand. In 1860, the Robinsons hired a tutor for their children. Since Millie was their nanny, her children were allowed to learn some limited lessons from the tutor as well.

After emancipation, the black community in Robinsonville grew quickly. Millie remained close with the Robinson family and with the children whom she had nursed and helped raise. In 1881, John Robinson’s son, Edward L. Robinson, gave just under 5 acres of land to Millie, with the stipulation that the land be used for educational purposes. Millie’s husband and two other men signed for the property. The community decided not only to build a school, but also a church on the plot of land. In 1882 members of the community completed St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church and the Post Oak Academy. In April of that year St. Paul held its first services under the leadership of E. H. Harris, the first pastor of the church, and an original trustee of the school.

The school and the church were closely connected. Most of the families of the area attended the church and sent their children to the school. C.H. Dorsey was one of the early headmasters of the Post Oak Academy. Dorsey also organized the church choir and served as a Church Trustee and Sunday School Superintendent. Children could stay after school on Friday afternoons for choir practice in order to perform on Sunday mornings. The school had two rooms, two teachers, and taught up to a seventh grade level. Some children continued their education at A.J. Moore High School in Waco.

A block over from the church, a cemetery provided a final resting place for the community. People buried there include men and women born in slavery, as well as veterans of World War I and II and several other wars. There is a mix of beautifully crafted headstones, hand carved memorials, and various other markers. Today, descendants of the black community continue to bury loved ones in this local cemetery.

Over time, the demographic of the area changed, as many Americans gradually moved out of the area. The school was destroyed by fire in the 1920s when it was struck by lightning, and was never rebuilt. Even the town itself changed, from Robinsonville to Robinson in 1955. However, St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church is still in existence today and descendants of Millie Bonner and other original families continue to attend. The congregation gathers each Sunday to worship and serve the community, just as the church was commissioned to do over 130 years ago. 

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Jeffie Obrea Allen Conner was born in 1895 on her family’s farm in Harrison Switch, Texas. She was the oldest of three children born to Meddie Lilian and Jeff D. Allen. Harrison Switch, later known as Harrison, was a small African American community eight miles southeast of Waco. Conner’s parents, and most other residents of Harrison, owned their own farms. This was notable in a time when the majority of African American farmers in Texas were sharecroppers. Conner showed great intelligence from a young age, and by 1914, she graduated from Prairie View Normal School, later known as Prairie View A&M, with a teaching certificate. She supported herself by teaching in various McLennan County schools. In 1923, Conner married a prominent Waco doctor, George S. Conner, and moved to his Waco home on 12^th Street. Dr. Conner was thirty-one years her senior. That same year, Conner left her job as a teacher to become a home demonstration agent, employed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The demonstration program was founded in 1912 as a way to teach rural girls homemaking skills, but soon grew with the help of federal funding and statewide organization. The program provided support to farming families by supplementing clothing, undertaking home improvement projects, and even funding scholarships. 

Due to segregation, Conner was only allowed to work with black women and families. Conner’s childhood years spent on the farm, as well as her training as a teacher, made her an excellent choice for the position. Conner taught women practical lessons, such as homemaking, sewing, basic healing, better farming techniques, and personal hygiene. Due to her influence, rural schools switched from a shared ladle to individual drinking cups for school children, cutting back on the spread of germs. She traveled throughout McLennan County during the week, and stayed with her husband in Waco on the weekends. Conner furthered her academic studies as well, returning to Prairie View and earning a bachelor’s degree in home economics in 1934. After receiving her degree, she was promoted to supervisor of home demonstration agents, which meant she was in charge of the program for all of Central Texas. She continued to travel during the week, staying in private homes, because segregation kept her from staying in hotels.  In 1939, Dr. Conner died. Conner, at the age of forty-four, found herself a widow, once again supporting herself.  She returned to school, and in 1944 received her Master’s degree in home economics from Prairie View. In 1948, Conner left her position with the home demonstration program to become supervisor of the black schools of McLennan County. She found that black schools had far less supplies, inferior accommodations, and a lack of funding compared to the white schools in the county. Conner fought to reform this injustice, and combined the thirty-five smaller schools into fourteen larger ones in order to make the most use of the limited resources available. In 1952, Conner retired but continued to live an active and involved lifestyle, persisting in her quest to make a difference in people’s lives. She was part of multiple social sororities, served as president of the Texas Federation of Colored Women’s Club and was influential as a member of the National Association of Colored Women’s Club. In 1966 she was appointed to the State’s Committee on Public School Education by Governor John Connally. Conner continued to be a faithful member of New Hope Baptist Church, and an active member of her community, serving throughout Waco and McLennan County until her death on June 10, 1972 at the age of 76. Jeffie Conner is remembered as one of the outstanding professional women of Waco, paving the way for future black women to follow in her footsteps and make a difference.

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In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Farmers’ Improvement Society (FIS) worked to help poor farmers escape the cycle of debt caused by the share cropping and credit system which developed in the wake of the Civil War. Although the abolition of slavery represented a great step forward after the Civil War, life for many African Americans did not immediately improve. After emancipation, a large portion of freedmen and freedwomen remained at the plantations they had lived on for years, taking on new roles as tenant farmers or sharecroppers. These forms of work became, in many ways, a new form of slavery. Both sharecropping and tenant farming involved a landowner renting a portion of their land to a farmer. Each year, the landowner claimed a portion of the farmer’s crop as rent. The farmer had to purchase tools, seeds, and other provisions, either from the landlord at the cost of a high share of the crop, or from a merchant on credit. The harvested crop would then be given to the landlord for rent and to the merchant to settle any outstanding debt. Problems often arose when the farmer had a bad harvest. The landlord charged the same portion each year, regardless of the amount brought in during the harvest. This often left farmers without enough crop to pay merchants back. This system created a cycle of debt and made it nearly impossible for people to leave sharecropping or tenant farming because they were never able to make enough money to go elsewhere. Robert Lloyd Smith, who married Ruby Cobb and was a part of the great Waco Smith-Cobb family, was living in Oakland, Texas, when he decided to combat the exploitation of black farmers through this unjust agricultural system. Smith witnessed first-hand the suffering of African Americans trapped in institutionalized poverty in Oakland, and in 1889, he created the Village Improvement Society (VIS) as a solution. The VIS focused upon helping black people improve the aesthetics of the areas of town in which they lived. In 1891, Smith restructured the VIS into the Farmers’ Improvement Society in order to focus on bettering farmers’ lives and ending the cycle of poverty. FIS set out to put a stop to sharecropping and tenant farming by encouraging farm ownership and the use of cash purchases instead of credit buying. The organization also provided health benefits to members, held agricultural fairs to demonstrate techniques, and even opened an agricultural college in Wolfe City, Texas, in 1906. The society became very popular among African American farmers, and by 1909, had grown to about 21,000 members across Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Texas. In 1912, the society’s members owned 75,000 acres of land valued at over $1 million. In 1908, FIS opened the Farmer’s Improvement Bank in Waco in order to solve the issue of farmers needing tools and provisions before being paid once a year at harvest. The Farmers’ Improvement Bank—located at 109 Bridge Street—provided farmers with low-interest alternatives to outside banks’ steep rates. Smith encouraged society members to hold their savings at the bank, and the local FIS offices were located above it. The bank continued to operate until the Great Depression lowered cotton prices drastically, resulting in most depositors withdrawing their money. The bank ultimately failed in September of 1930. Despite the popularity of the organization among black farmers, the Great Depression took a heavy toll upon FIS, and it weakened as more farmers left for major cities to find jobs. Throughout the 1930s, the society lost much of its membership and had to take out loans to pay benefits owed to remaining members. R. L. Smith and his wife Ruby Cobb worked to keep the association afloat, but Smith’s death in 1942 spelled the end of the society. After nearly half a century of working to elevate the status of African Americans in Texas, the Farmers’ Improvement Society ceased operations.

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An African American-owned hotel during the period of segregation and Jim Crow laws, the College View Court-Hotel provided respite for black travelers on the road.

The College View Court-Hotel offered guests modern comfort with its thirty-five air-conditioned rooms and tiled bathrooms. Owned by Dr. J. W. Yancy II, president of Paul Quinn College from 1939 to 1942, the hotel operated throughout the 1950s and continued well into the late 1970s during a time of dramatic expansion in highway travel. Automobile ownership boomed in the post-World War II period. Advances in technology made cars increasingly reliable for long distance travel as well as more affordable to larger portions of society, including the emerging black middle class.

African Americans saw the mobility and freedom that highway travel offered as especially attractive. Despite the opportunities opened up by new technology and expanded infrastructure, travel still required extensive planning since many businesses refused to serve non-white citizens. The emergence of motels such as the College View Court-Hotel in the mid-twentieth century provided some relief. The College View offered convenient and affordable lodging to African Americans on the road. The amenities at motor lodges such as this one—such as the way rooms opened into the parking lot, or the offering of separate cabins for each family—made travel more accessible.

The Negro Motorist Green Book served as a vital guidebook for African American travelers. The College View Court-Hotel first appeared in the Green Book publication in 1951 and continued to appear in the updated edition throughout the 1950s and 1960s. It was The Green Book’s mission to “give the Negro traveler information that will keep him from running into difficulties, embarrassments and to make his trips more enjoyable,” in spite of harsh Jim Crow laws. It was an essential tool for the black traveler facing strict segregation.

The College View Court-Hotel stood as a symbol of the black middle class in Waco, serving African Americans who embraced travel throughout the country in spite of its difficulties. Yancy owned the hotel until it eventually closed and was razed in the 1970s. It is likely that decreased business following integration contributed to the motel’s closure. Today, visitors can still see the center steps and concrete landscape walls of the hotel at the business’s former address, 1129 Elm Avenue in Waco.

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In the early part of the twentieth century, the area around Bridge Street on the west side of the Brazos River, known as the square, was home to various bars, restaurants, grocery stores, offices, insurance agencies, and other businesses that were African-American owned. The square boasted popular institutions like the Gem Theatre, Mecca Drug Store, and the Jockey Club Barber Shop, the first black-owned barbershop in the city. It originally opened in 1920 on the bottom floor of the Conner & Willis building at Second Street and Franklin Avenue and was named Jockey Club after a line of beauty and hair-care products that the wife of the building’s owner’s wife spotted in Chicago. The owner Woodrow “Buster” Anderson had his son take over the business while he served during World War II. In 1944, Anderson’s nephew Benny Frank Smith came to the business and remained the owner until his death in 2004. The Jockey Club closed its doors in 2011 when its last barber, Lloyd Dugas, retired.

The Jockey Club Barber Shop weathered the 1953 tornado that demolished much of Bridge Street and the square. But in 1970, the federal urban renewal program cleared the entire area of some two hundred buildings, sparing only Waco City Hall. The business was forced to relocate to Elm Street and received only $2,500 in compensation for the move. Regardless of location, the barbershop remained a neighborhood icon for many generations.

Long-serving barbers Jesse Mayes, Lloyd Dugas, and Cicero Martin grew extremely close and attracted a loyal clientele. The barbers encouraged customers to stick around and catch up on Dallas Cowboy trivia and discuss who was missing from church last week. The Jockey Club was a place where the currency was talk and people got good, solid haircuts—not hairstyles. In its history, the barbershop attracted a number of celebrities including the famous baseball star Jackie Robinson. It was also a favorite of Baylor athletes like Walter Abercrombie and Michael Johnson. Many generations have remained loyal to the Jockey Club, even driving in from out of town to get a haircut after moving away from Waco. The barbershop remained an active part of the neighborhood, supporting local charities and caring about the community. It cultivated an irreplaceable and timeless environment through conversation, laughter, and haircuts and it represents a legacy of hard, honest work supported by loyal customers. The barbershop provided meaningful and memorable community for Waco citizens for countless years.

The Jockey Club’s service to the Waco community for over a century lives on today. Former owner Frank Smith’s widow, Iva, reopened the Jockey Club in February of 2016 much to the excitement of the neighborhood. The original barber chairs are still intact and have been reupholstered in dashing red and blue. The same seating remains along the wall coupled with the familiar Big Red vending machine. Tributes to the rich history of the shop are displayed all along the walls for customers to view. This Waco icon was designated a City of Waco Historic Landmark in 2023, and it continues to serve its community on Elm Avenue, preserving its legacy for future generations of customers.

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Dan “Uncle Dan” McLennan was born in 1849 as a slave to Neil McLennan in what would a year later become known as McLennan County, named for his master. Uncle Dan became a beloved member of not only the McLennan family but of the Waco community as well. He is best remembered for his fiddle playing, carrying his instrument around town with him in a flour sack.

Life on the frontier provided a variety of challenges for Uncle Dan and his family. Uncle Dan’s father, Alf, also lived as a slave of the McLennan family and lost his ear when Native Americans attacked the McLennan farm. Uncle Dan himself, living as a slave in the backwoods of Texas, experienced several encounters with Indians, though all peaceful. As a boy, he learned to fish as well as hunt squirrels, raccoons, possums, and even deer, helping the family survive on the frontier.

Even after gaining his freedom at the end of the Civil War, Dan remained closely connected to the McLennan family. He was especially loyal to Catherine McLennan Davis, the daughter of Neil McLennan. According to Uncle Dan’s daughter, Mrs. Davis took Dan under her wing, becoming a mother of sorts to him. Catherine taught him to read and write, a rare skill for a born slave. In 1870, on Catherine’s farm, Dan married Ann, who would come to be known as Aunt Ann. They had twelve children, six boys and six girls, in their fifty years of marriage.

On a few occasions, Dan went on cattle drives with the McLennan/Davis family. He rode up to Kansas, bringing cattle down with him. Though he worked for a time on Davis land, Dan became a successful farmer in his own right, working his own farm. The family grew subsistence crops to live off of, as well as cash crops such as cotton.

Living in China Spring, Uncle Dan and his family frequently made the slow journey to Waco by horse-pulled wagon. Often the family would return home the same day, leaving at sunset and finding their way back in the dark. Several of Dan’s family members lived in Waco, and on occasion the family stayed overnight with one of his brothers who owned a saloon in town. In Waco, Uncle Dan was in high demand due to his great talent for fiddling. He often found himself hired by white families to play at picnics, reunions, and other celebrations. These festivities were large, all-day affairs, complete with music, singing, dancing, and piles of food. Sometimes Dan’s sons, also musically inclined, would accompany him, playing guitar alongside his fiddling.

Uncle Dan died in 1919 at the age of seventy-one. During his lifetime, he witnessed a monumental amount of change. Waco and McLennan County were founded, and Waco blossomed from a village into a thriving city with nearly forty thousand residents. Born a slave, he experienced emancipation, dying a free man. He lived during a time of great transformation and the strife which came with it. Though a great deal of racial violence and tensions occurred during his lifetime, he was much loved by both whites and blacks in Waco and McLennan County. Uncle Dan and Aunt Ann are buried in unmarked, concrete-covered graves in a corner of the L. R. Davis Cemetery (as marked on the Waco History map) in China Spring.

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The first African American mayor of a major city in Texas, Oscar DuCongé rose to local prominence through his civil service and selfless dedication to improving life for all Wacoans.

Born in Pass Christian, Mississippi, on April 19, 1909, Oscar DuCongé spent the majority of his childhood in New Orleans. The ninth of fourteen children, DuCongé went to work at an early age, sweeping floors and cleaning utensils in the barbershop where his father worked. His mother taught music and gave sewing lessons in their home. DuCongé later said his family’s budget was operated as a “community chest,” with the girls working at home, the boys getting odd jobs to pour into the pot, and his mother disbursing the funds as needed. The family’s thrifty ways enabled DuCongé and nine of his siblings to receive college educations.

DuCongé earned a bachelor’s degree in sociology from Xavier University in New Orleans in 1931. He married his childhood sweetheart, Mary, who was better known by her nickname Kitty, in 1937. Just a few years later in 1942, he was drafted into the US Army. After completing his basic training in Alabama, DuCongé was assigned to Fort Huachuca, Arizona, were he worked in the finance department. When his regiment was transferred to Italy, he volunteered for combat duty. Assigned to an infantry unit, he came under fire in the Italian Campaign before he left the service in September of 1945.

Following his service overseas, DuCongé returned to school to get a master’s degree in social work in 1946 from Atlanta University, and completed other postgraduate work at Southern University in Baton Rouge, University of Pittsburgh, and Xavier University while Mary completed her own studies.

When Oscar received a job offer from the Veterans Affairs Hospital in Waco in 1948, the DuCongés picked up their lives and moved to 1209 Preston Street (as indicated on the Waco History map), quickly becoming involved in civic life in the city. DuCongé left his job at the VA in the 1950s in order to co-own and operate the Doris Miller Memorial Park. He served as the secretary-treasurer of the park from 1955 until 1972. In June of 1966, he was named director of Neighborhood Centers for the Economic Opportunities Advancement Corporation (EOAC) in Waco. Although the position did not pay much, it presented an opportunity for DuCongé to become involved in social work again and to tackle the issue of widespread poverty. Six years later, his job title was changed to director of community programming.

When DuCongé ran but failed to obtain a seat on the school board in 1970, constituents drafted him to run for city council in 1972. Defeating his white opponent, high school administrator M. D. Ritcherson, DuCongé earned the affection of his ward and the respect of his council colleagues. He ran unopposed in 1974 to retain the seat. 

DuConge’s election built upon decades-old efforts to reform voting practices in Waco. When the city saw its first black candidate for city council in 1950, Waco’s white decision-makesr facilitated a shift from a single-member district system to all at-large seats, in which each seat was voted on by the entire city. Given that Waco was majority-white, this shift all but assured the exclusion of black candidates from local political office. In 1972, the League of Women Voters started a committee that challenged the system two years later by bringing suit against the city of Waco. Austin lawyer David Richards — husband of future Gov. Ann Richards — took on the case. The petitioners were William Haliburton, Wilbert Austin, Lela Briscoe, Roland Arriola, Pete Arvizu, Frances Ortega, Kathy Patteson, Myrtle McKinney and Jane Derrick. On April 19, 1976, an Austin judge ruled in favor of the Wacoans and ordered the city to change to a single-member district system of electing the council. While the fight for social and systemic equality remained elusive for many Wacoans of color, this ruling ushered in a period in which elected officials began to more accurately represent their constituencies.

The respect DuCongé garnered on the council led to his election as the city’s mayor. As reported by the Dallas Morning News on April 13, 1974: “Black and Catholic, DuCongé was selected this week by his white fellow councilmen to serve as mayor of this predominantly Baptist city which in the past has been white ruled.”

DuCongé saw the vote of his colleagues as indicative of societal changes sweeping the nation in that late civil rights era and sought to serve as the mayor of the whole city rather than of one faction. He dedicated his time as mayor to improving the lives of as many people as possible. After leaving the council in 1975, DuCongé remained active in civic affairs and charity in Greater Waco, promoting racial harmony and fighting to eradicate poverty. He passed away on July 26, 1978.

A dedicated civil servant, Oscar DuCongé set a precedent for overcoming racial divisions and endeavoring to make the community a better place for all citizens. 

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For nearly half a century, cotton reigned as king of Waco's economy, establishing the once small frontier town as a thriving urban center known throughout the country.

The area later named Waco held a long history of agricultural pursuits tracing back to the Waco Indians' farming of crops such as melons, pumpkins, lima beans, and corn. Cotton farming and plantation culture arrived in Waco along with the first white settlers of McLennan County. Initially hesitant to plant crops in the black soil found in Central Texas, these settlers soon found the alluvial soil of the Brazos Valley and blackland prairie ideal for growing cotton.

Prior to the Civil War, cotton production in McLennan County remained relatively small. Without a means to transport the product with ease throughout the country, there was little reason to produce large amounts of cotton. Additionally, although farmers sought to recreate southern plantation life in Waco, legal restrictions placed on the number of slaves a landlord could bring into Texas prevented large-scale plantations from developing.

Cotton production slowed with the dawn of the Civil War as most Wacoans, supporting secession, left to fight. The price of cotton fell and shipments to Europe stopped completely when the Union blocked established trade routes out of the South. Yet this setback ultimately turned into Waco's first step toward industrialization when, during his search to secure passage for the crop, John Baylis Earle acquired equipment for a cotton mill in England, disassembled it, and smuggled it into Waco via Mexico. The new mill freed up considerable time for women who had previously spent hours sewing and spinning cotton.

The defeat of the South in 1865 and subsequent emancipation of slaves completely restructured plantation life. Although some freedmen left Waco, many remained in the area in altered relationships with their former owners. The large number of people desiring to farm a limited amount of land led to a new hierarchy. Unable to pay all of their former slaves a fair wage, landowners rented pieces of land to tenants and sharecroppers in exchange for a portion of the crop and profit at the end of the growing season.

The cotton industry industrialized and grew considerably in Waco during this period immediately following the Civil War. The construction of the Waco Suspension Bridge and arrival of the Waco Tap Railroad in 1870 increased the number of people and goods entering and departing the city. Waco's cotton market boomed, and by 1885, the city became known as the largest inland cotton market in Texas. When a second railroad connection arrived, it was named the Cotton Belt Route in honor of the large market to which it primarily catered.

Life in Waco came to revolve around the crop which had earned the town the name of King Cotton. Bankers loaned money against cotton crops, and the city economy boomed along with farmers' prosperity. Brokers from other states and nations opened offices in the city. Each fall, farmers from the surrounding counties arrived in the town square at daybreak to display bales for classification and sale. In 1894, the city instituted the grand annual festival named the Cotton Palace Exposition in order to honor and celebrate the central role of the crop in the local economy.

By the turn of the twentieth century, however, the cotton industry reached its peak and was already beginning a steady decline, largely due to the diversification of agriculture as well as the depletion of soil nutrients. Although no longer the enormous market force it once represented, cotton continued to play an important role in Waco's economy throughout the twentieth century, with small numbers of farmers growing cotton and local merchants continuing to offer rewards for the first bale of cotton each season. Today, small cotton farms can be seen in the countryside surrounding the city, and the legacy of the crop which once made Waco a center of the South is visible in landmarks around town such as Cottonland Castle, the silos of the old cotton oil mill, and the site of the Texas Cotton Palace.

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Although born of humble beginnings, Greater Ebenezer Baptist Church has been lifting Wacoans up in worship for over a century.

The church now known as Greater Ebenezer Baptist began as Oak Street Baptist Church in East Waco in 1915, when Rev. J. S. A. Trowser organized a church of eleven members at a little house at 117 Oak Street, right next to an Elm Street cotton gin where several members worked. The Oak Street Baptist Church grew and by 1918, was able to pay Trowser a salary of $17.50 a week.

In 1924, the church was renamed Ebenezer Baptist Church as it moved to Dutton Street and began growing one lot at a time as the congregation could afford. Around 1940, Trowser passed the pulpit to the Rev. J. E. Deckard, who served seven years. Since then, seven other pastors have led the church.

Before the construction of I-35, Dutton Avenue served as the main drag and the mostly unpaved streets around it were packed with small houses and corner stores. Families would walk to church from the South Waco neighborhood, joining others who had walked from farther reaches of Waco or even country towns such as Downsville. Dressed in their Sunday best, they would settle in for an entire day of singing, preaching, and fellowship.

Many congregants still remember every corner of that old wood-frame church building, which was built in 1924, substantially renovated in 1940, and wrapped in brick in 1969. Notable for its red windows—bought at a time when stained glass was too expensive for a working-class congregation—it was razed to make way for the new million-dollar building, complete with stained glass.

The church’s current pastor, Rev. Kerry Burkley, a Truett Seminary graduate who also is program director of the Waco Children’s Advocacy Center, is the son of a Central Texas minister. He remembers coming to Greater Ebenezer when his father was a guest preacher there and sensing the history and community of the church. He said the church maintains a strong sense of community despite the decline of the adjacent neighborhood.

Congregants saw a superhighway built at their doorstep in the 1960s, and later the orange stakes on the front lawn marking I-35’s expansion area. Much of the land around the church increasingly became owned by developers. In recent years, the church has turned away inquiries from real estate buyers interested in new construction on the corner.

In the summer of 2015, the church celebrated its centennial with a multi-day revival. Despite the barrage of change around the church, the values of Greater Ebenezer remain largely similar to those of the original institution founded by hard-working East Wacoans over a century ago. The church retains a strong commitment to serving as a center of worship and community, being a “stone of help for people.”

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