History of the African Americans in Dallas-Fort Worth

There is an African-American community in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex.

Black Enterprise magazine has consistently ranked Dallas as a "Top 10 city for African-Americans".^[1]

History

In the mid-1800s lynchings of African Americans took place in Dealey Plaza.^[2]

In the late 1800s there were over 11,000 black people in Dallas.^[2]

In the 1990s the number of African-Americans making annual incomes of $100,000 or more (adjusted to $75,000 as of 1990, from the circa 2005 number) increased by 300%. Around 2005 increasing numbers of African-Americans moved to suburban communities in Dallas County.^[3]

The Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex gained approximately 233,000 new African-Americans between 2000 and 2010. Second only behind Atlanta, Georgia during that time span.^[4] According to the Brookings Institution, in years 2006-2010 the DFW area had 7,678 black people migrate into the area, giving it the fourth highest inward black migration of all U.S. metropolitan areas.^[5]

In 2012 Jamie Thompson of D Magazine stated that Dallas "still suffers from an image problem among black professionals who perceive other cities—Atlanta; Chicago; or Washington, D.C.—as being more friendly to blacks."^[5]

Geography

In 1850 there were at least 207 black people in Dallas County, making up less than 10% of the county population.^[2] Historically, the black community was strongly concentrated in the inner-city of Dallas and Fort Worth but that has slowly changed since the 1980s.^[6]

In northern DFW suburbs, the black population rate has grown 178 percent since the 1990s. The strongest growth is in the southern suburbs, for example Cedar Hill was approximately 51.9 percent black in 2010, after a gain of more than 12,500 new black residents since the last decade.^[7] The southern suburbs (DeSoto, Duncanville, Lancaster, Cedar Hill) have been noted as the core of the African-American middle class and upper middle class community in the metroplex.^[4]

Stop Six is a historically black neighborhood in Fort Worth.

In 2005 Mansfield had 62 households of African-Americans with annual incomes of at least $100,000; there were none in 1990 with the equivalent ($75,000).^[8] That same year, the median income of African-American households in Rowlett was higher than the overall median income for that city.^[9]

Health care

In the late 1800s there were two black doctors in Dallas, and in 1954 there were 18 black doctors in that city.^[2]

McMillan Sanitarium, a healthcare institution for blacks in what is now Uptown Dallas, created by Walter R. McMillan, opened in the early 1900s.^[2]

Politics

In 1995, the city of Dallas elected its first black mayor Ron Kirk. He held office from 1995 to 2002. Dallas' Black Chamber of Commerce was established in 1926 and is the oldest in the United States.^[10] Fort Worth and some surrounding cities also have a black chamber of commerce.

Media

The Dallas Weekly is the largest African-American centric publication based in the region.^[11] The Dallas Examiner is the other most widely circulated African-American centric publication based in the metroplex.

Other black newspapers include the Dallas edition of African-American News & Issues, Black Economic Times, Community Quest, The Dallas Post Tribune, LaVita News/The Black Voice in Arlington, Minority Business News, and Minority Opportunity News Gazette.^[12]

The Dallas Express was formerly published in the city.

Education

Primary and secondary schools

Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, a magnet school, was previously a school reserved for black children

Segregation era

In the era before the 1960s racial integration of schools, Dallas Independent School District had four high schools for blacks: Booker T. Washington High School, Lincoln High School, James Madison High School,^[13] and briefly Franklin D. Roosevelt High School. Other schools for black children included George Washington Carver Elementary School (in West Dallas), Benjamin Franklin Darrell Elementary School, Frederick Douglass Elementary School, Eagle Ford Elementary School, Joseph J. Rhoads Elementary School, H.S. Thompson Elementary School, Phyllis Wheatley Elementary School, and Colonial School.^[14]

9th Ward School was the first secondary school for black children; its name was changed to Dallas Colored High School in 1893, and in 1927 the building was converted to B.F. Darrell Elementary School, named after a principal at Dallas Colored High. The former Dallas Colored transitioned into Booker T. Washington High School, which opened in 1922. Colored School No. 4 became Frederick Douglass Elementary School in 1902. In 1930 Phyllis Wheatley Elementary was built. In 1939 Lincoln High School, the second black high school, opened. Carver Elementary opened in 1954. In 1955, due to the increasing number of black students around Fair Park, the former Lagow Elementary School for white children was converted into the Joseph J. Rhoads Elementary School for black children; it was the first racially converted school in Dallas.^[14] In 1956 the former Forest Avenue High School for whites was converted into Madison High for blacks.^[15] Colonial School was converted into a school for black children in 1957. Roosevelt opened in 1963.^[14]

The Catholic church operated St. Peter's Academy for black children in Dallas.^[14]

Carrollton Colored School was the school for black children in the Carrollton-Farmers Branch Independent School District in the segregation era.^[14]

Post-segregation

Circa 2005 increasing numbers of African-American students attended schools in the Best Southwest area. Wealthier African-American parents often moved to different school districts to get perceived better educations for their children.^[16] Around that same time period increasing numbers of wealthier African-American families were sending their children to private schools; in 2001 there were 5,400 black students in the region's private schools.^[17]

From 2000 to 2010 the number of black students in Dallas ISD decreased by 20,000. In 2010 that was the lowest in the post-1965 history of DISD. One reason for the decline in the percentage of black students is the move of black people to suburbs; they did so due to a perception that public schools there have a higher quality than those in DISD, as well as general desires for higher quality housing and lower crime environments. Another reason was the growth in charter schools which take students who would otherwise attend DISD schools; in 2010 5,900 black students attending charter schools in the area lived in the DISD boundaries. Other reasons for the decline in the percentage of black students included a perception that DISD has moved its focus away from black students and towards Hispanic students, and the fact that many Hispanics have moved into traditionally black neighborhoods.^[18]

Recreation

The metroplex is also home to one of the largest HBCU football classics in the country with the State Fair Classic.

Notable African-American cultural point of interest includes the African-American Museum of Dallas in Fair Park and the Dallas Black Dance Theatre and The Black Academy of Arts and Letters both in downtown.^[10] In Fort Worth, The Lenora Roll Heritage Center Museum and National Multicultural Western Heritage Museum houses history highlighting African-American culture primarily in the North Texas region.^[19] In Irving, the Jackie Townsell Bear Creek Heritage Center is a museum that tells the story of Bear Creek of West Irving, one of the oldest established black communities in North Texas.^[20]

Dallas Black Giants and Dallas Green Monarchs were black baseball teams.

LGBT culture

Dallas Black Pride is a celebration event established by the metroplex's growing black gay community.

Notable residents

• Ron Kirk - Mayor of Dallas
• A. Maceo Smith - Civil Rights activist

References

External links

• Tarrant County Black Historical and Geneological Society
• "The New Face of Affluence." The Dallas Morning News. - A series of articles about black professionals in DFW