The African Texans

Chapter 3. Life after Emancipation

Life after Emancipation ▼▼▼          Life after Emancipation ONCE AFRICAN AMERICANS in Texas became free people they developed goals that tried to overcome the severe limitations of slavery.Black Texans wanted to shape their own families,use their economic skills to help themselves, create schools for the education of their children, form their own churches, and control their own social and cultural lives, all within a society that was to allow them equal opportunity and legal status. To reach these goals black people urged that laws should no longer limit their place or roles in society. They wanted the right to vote for political leaders who made decisions about laws that could advance or restrict their progress. Because of white majorities in the state legislature and in the United States Congress, decisions on legal and political status depended on finding some Anglo Americans who favored greater equality. In the years immediately after the Civil War, the late s, a majority in the U.S. Congress, who had opposed secession and favored national unity, also passed laws and constitutional amendments that made African Americans citizens of the United States with the right to vote. Yet other white Americans and Texans, who had favored the old slave system, opposed those laws and threatened or attacked African Americans who voted or used the other rights of citizens. Despite the problems, in , African American voters helped elect a Republican majority to a constitutional convention that included nine black delegates.In ,a similar majority was elected to the legislature, including fourteen African African Texans ▼▼▼  William Madison McDonald (– ) William Madison McDonald achieved a variety of goals when he became a prominent leader in African American fraternal organizations , business, and politics. He was born in Kaufman County, Texas, on June , . Working part-time for an attorney-rancher allowed him to complete high school and study at Roger Williams University in Tennessee. In the s and early s, he taught school and helped to organize a black state fair in North Texas. During that period, he took an active role in African American fraternal groups, beginning with the Seven Stars of Consolidation of America. He rose quickly to be its Supreme Grand Chief by . By that time, he also had accepted membership in the C. W. Bryant, a delegate from Harris County to the Texas Constitutional Convention, –. Institute of Texan Cultures illustration no. - Life after Emancipation ▼▼▼  Prince Hall Free and Accepted Masons. In , he aided the formation of the Heroines of Jericho. Those groups reflected the views of an emerging black middle class that promoted leadership, economic development, efforts to retain political and civil rights, and community social life. McDonald began to work for the Masons in , and by  had risen to the Right Worshipful Grand Secretary, the powerful, day-to-day director, and held that position for fifty years. Under his leadership the Texas Masons created a cotton mill, published a magazine , offered insurance to members, and established a bank in Fort Worth that he managed. He developed at least temporary support for the Fraternal Bank and Trust from other African American fraternal groups. With him as Lizzie Brown, a resident of Waelder, Texas, poses with umbrella and fan for this studio portrait, c. s. Institute of Texan Cultures illustration no. - African Texans ▼▼▼  American legislators. The new black political leaders included ministers , teachers, farmers, blacksmiths, and other skilled craftsmen. Efforts byAfrican Texans and some white Texans,usually Unionists, to have the state control the violence against black people and provide schools for all citizens proved unpopular with others who generally had supported the Confederacy.1 Discrimination continued against black Texans such as that experienced in  by “Bones” Hooks in the town of Wamba near Texarkana. Hooks had saved some money and invested it in a grocery store. He arrived one day, eighteen months later, to find a sign on the door that said,“We give you thirty-six hours to get out.”The White Caps of Sand Gall Gizzard signed it. To escape some of the pressures from this continuing discrimination by whites, and to promote jobs,groups of African Texans established at least fifty black or predominantly black communities during the late s. These villages, such as Germany near Crockett, usually formed a social center for surrounding farms and farm workers.Sympathetic whites provided land in a few cases,while someAfrican Texans saved money to buy land to start more communities. Peyton Colony...