Fighting Their Own Battles

Mexican Americans, African Americans, and the Struggle for Civil Rights in Texas

Brian D. Behnken

• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9780807877876
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

Between 1940 and 1975, Mexican Americans and African Americans in Texas fought a number of battles in court, at the ballot box, in schools, and on the streets to eliminate segregation and state-imposed racism. Although both groups engaged in civil rights struggles as victims of similar forms of racism and discrimination, they were rarely unified. In Fighting Their Own Battles, Brian Behnken explores the cultural dissimilarities, geographical distance, class tensions, and organizational differences that all worked to separate Mexican Americans and blacks. Behnken further demonstrates that prejudices on both sides undermined the potential for a united civil rights campaign. Coalition building and cooperative civil rights efforts foundered on the rocks of perceived difference, competition, distrust, and, oftentimes, outright racism. Behnken's in-depth study reveals the major issues of contention for the two groups, their different strategies to win rights, and significant thematic developments within the two civil rights struggles. By comparing the histories of these movements in one of the few states in the nation to witness two civil rights movements, Behnken bridges the fields of Mexican American and African American history, revealing the myriad causes that ultimately led these groups to "fight their own battles."

1 Advancing the Cause of Democracy

The Origins of Protest in the Long Civil Rights Movement

On a warm Monday night in May 1950, a handful of dynamite easily destroyed Robert and Marie Shelton's American dream. The bomb ripped through the African American couple's newly purchased home in South Dallas, demolishing their front porch, knocking the house off its foundation, and leaving behind a large hole in the ground. Robert received cuts and gashes about his face from flying debris, while Marie was uninjured. Roughly one month later, a bundle of dynamite exploded along the side of taxi driver Dennis Huffman's recently purchased home, also in South Dallas. The unoccupied house received only slight damage, but the next day a massive bomb obliterated Johnnie Staton's new home. Staton had not yet moved into the house, and no one sustained injuries from the explosion.¹

The black citizens of South Dallas suffered more than fifteen racially motivated bombings in 1950 before the attacks ended. Like bombings in Birmingham, Alabama, and other southern cities, the terrorist acts in Dallas stemmed from the migration of blacks out of overcrowded segregated neighborhoods and into areas zoned for white use.² But in South Dallas, two of the main suspects were Mexican American men who felt threatened by the encroachment of African American families into white neighborhoods. One of these individuals, Pete Garcia, later admitted that he had painted “For Whites Only” signs in the neighborhood, threatened black home buyers with a knife, and chased two African American real estate agents out of the area. Several blacks had spotted Garcia near a home shortly before a bomb exploded. Dallas police arrested Garcia for the bombings. At his trial, despite his admitted abhorrence of African Americans and close proximity to a bombed house, an all-white jury refused to convict Garcia.³

Incidents like the South Dallas bombings divided Mexican Americans and blacks. Because at least two of the accused bombers were of Mexican descent, these episodes confirmed for some black Dallasites that Mexican Americans shared not only the racist attitudes of Anglos but also the violent proclivities that accompanied such racism. Of course, the Dallas bombings were the exception—few Mexican Americans disliked black people so much that they threw bombs. But as Michael Phillips has observed, “African American gains could only mean loss for Mexican Americans while oppression of his [Garcia's] black neighbors provided a quick route to whiteness.”⁴

The early to mid-twentieth century witnessed the development of the African American and Mexican American freedom struggles, what Jacquelyn Dowd Hall has termed “the long civil rights movement.”⁵ Both groups experienced obstacles that blocked their paths to political, social, and economic uplift. The development of the dual Jim Crow system limited black and Mexican American options in fighting for rights. Moreover, the racist perceptions of whites that Mexican Americans and African Americans constituted racially degenerate and inferior groups further circumscribed their efforts. When fighting for civil rights, African Americans primarily focused on winning legal battles to eradicate some of the most offensive aspects of Jim Crow segregation, concentrating, for example, on removing obstacles to suffrage and black access to higher educational facilities. Indeed, Texas saw some of the earliest and most important legal victories in the national civil rights movement. Mexican Americans primarily fought for rights by positioning themselves as members of the white race in order to avoid Jim Crow. Mexican American leaders had a number of successes in obtaining recognition as white people from the state government. But the whiteness strategy frustrated a close working relationship with black Texans. In this time frame, African Americans and Mexican Americans rarely discussed forming coalitions, something they would each debate in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. Instead, both movements traveled on parallel tracks as each group fought its own battles.

African Americans in Texas fought for civil rights long before a “civil rights movement” existed. In the early twentieth century, much of the freedom struggle occurred on the local level and took place spontaneously. Jim Crow ruled the day, which seriously curtailed efforts aimed at uplift. Segregation also meant that blacks had to establish a separate community with its own infrastructure. This helped to insulate African Americans while simultaneously giving them a concrete goal for which to fight. Businesspeople, attorneys, teachers, and members of the clergy all participated in the early struggle. Many of these individuals would come to form the backbone of the civil rights movement in the fifties and sixties. Moreover, since black preachers earned their livelihood via the church, religious and business concerns frequently merged. In addition to business and the ministry, blacks also began to more forcefully push for rights after the emergence of the NAACP.

As a segregated community, black Texans needed their own business establishments. Fighting for black-owned businesses contributed to the broader struggle for civil rights. In Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, and most other cities, the Negro press actively promoted the development of the black business sector. For example, in 1921 Clifton Richardson, the longtime editor of the weekly Houston Informer, argued: “Have we no race pride? no self-respect? . . . Are we content to forever serve in the ‘Sambo,’ ‘Uncle Ned,’ ‘Aunt Dinah,’ and ‘Sally Ann’ role both from a political, commercial and civic viewpoint?” Richardson wanted African Americans to develop a system of black capitalism as a way not only of generating “race pride,” but also of overcoming the hardships of segregation. Business ventures, he maintained, could serve as a way to circumvent the most uncomfortable aspects of Jim Crow.⁶

Public transportation emerged as one area where African American businesspeople challenged racism. Reminiscent of big cities today, taxicabs often refused service to blacks. As a result, African Americans established an independent type of taxi service called a “jitney.” Jitneys became a fixture in black communities such as Houston and Dallas, and some jitney drivers eventually transformed themselves into legitimate taxi services. But the jitneys also took profits from white businesses, which caused a backlash against them. In 1923 the Houston City Council banned jitney transportation after several white-owned businesses complained about lost profits. But the jitney drivers refused to halt their service and banded together to force the city to conduct a referendum to decide the jitney issue. Alas, the jitneys lost this vote by a two-to-one margin, which brought jitney service to an end.⁷

Dallas, Houston, and other cities served as distinct sites of African American culture and nightlife, another important aspect of community development. In particular, Dallas's Deep Ellum rivaled blues centers in Memphis, Harlem, and elsewhere. Blacks originally settled the area as part of “freedmen's town” after the Civil War. In the early twentieth century, Deep Ellum emerged as a business district with several restaurants, dance halls, bars, nightclubs, pawnshops, and domino parlors. But music was key. Deep Ellum became a way station for blues travelers en route to gigs in Tennessee, Louisiana, New York, or on the West Coast. Huddie “Leadbelly” Ledbetter and “Blind” Lemon Jefferson, who sang together, had their careers take off in Dallas. Robert Johnson and Bessie Smith also frequently performed in Deep Ellum. The music and festive atmosphere proved a balm to black Texans, while at the same time Deep Ellum afforded black entrepreneurs the opportunity to expand their business interests. As authors Alan Govenar and Jay Brakefield have written, Deep Ellum “was a crossroads, a nexus, where peoples and cultures could interact and influence each other in relative freedom.” Unfortunately, integration killed the distinctiveness of Deep Ellum, although it reemerged in the twentieth century as a tourist trap much like Beale Street in Memphis.⁸

Education provided another area of African American employment, one that black leaders hoped would lead to equality. Since segregated black schools and colleges needed teachers, these facilities gave many local people much-needed jobs. But education also fit in well with the broader freedom struggle since teachers instructed students about their rights. Some African American educators encouraged their faculty to join groups like the NAACP. Matthew Dogan, the president of Wiley College in Marshall, actively promoted the NAACP. At Tillotson College in Austin, Mary Branch, the first woman of color to serve as a college president in Texas, also encouraged membership in the association. This support produced some amazing results. For instance, James Farmer was born in Marshall and in 1938 received a bachelor's degree from Wiley College. In 1942 Farmer went on to found the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), one of the most important civil rights organizations in American history.⁹ Lulu White, Moses Leonard Price, Eldrewey Stearns, Earl Allen, and many other civil rights leaders received their higher educations at Texas's historically black colleges.

Black ministers contributed to the educational and spiritual uplift of black Texans as well as to the broader struggle for rights. Those who promoted civil rights also advocated education for African Americans. They understood the value of colleges in cultivating a future generation of leaders. Additionally, black ministerial organizations like the Missionary Baptist General Convention (MBGC) stridently supported education and civil rights. mbgc president Reverend Albert A. Lucas, for example, drew on the power of Baptist churches in Texas to financially assist three colleges; Mary Allen College in Crockett, Union Seminary in Houston, and Guadalupe College in Seguin. He also helped the NAACP in the Smith v. Allwright case. When Reverend Moses L. Price succeeded Lucas as president of the mbgc, he continued many of Lucas's educational initiatives. Price consolidated the schools the mbgc financed. He brought Bishop College, one of the premier black educational institutions in the state, under the financial control of the mbgc and made Mary Allen College, Union Seminary, and Guadalupe College satellites of Bishop College. Price attempted to found a new black Baptist university in Texas but was unsuccessful.¹⁰

Black ministers supported the movement by preaching the message of civil rights. This enabled them to safely participate in the struggle without getting physically involved in demonstrations. Many prominent ministers who helped lead the movement in the 1950s and 1960s got their start preaching civil rights in previous decades—among them, Ernest Estell of Dallas, Claude Black of San Antonio, and Lee H. Simpson and M. L. Price of Houston. Reverend Simpson, for example, made frequent references to social justice and “social life” in his sermons. In the 1940s he began to encourage his congregation to fight for rights. “Social life,” Simpson contended, “means society functioning in all of its varied aspects for the good of the whole.” Since the United States failed to support all people, it fell to African Americans to make society work “for the good of the whole.” “Living in a dynamic society which is in a period of transition,” he argued, “we are challenged as to the meaning and purpose of social life.¹¹” The term “social life,” which Simpson and others used repeatedly, became a code word for “civil rights.” By the fifties and sixties many black ministers began to use the terms interchangeably. From the pulpit in 1965, Reverend Price observed: “To go forth into New Frontiers in Social Life is not so easy. . . . Different standards of living based upon race, creed and color have no place in Society. . . . Residential districts should not be restricted. . . . Schools should be for people because learning is for people. Eating places should be open to all people.”¹² Ministers like Simpson and Price offered a discourse on the spiritual and the secular, on religion and rights. David Chappell asserts that ministerial leaders convinced movement participants “that God was on their side. . . . This conviction often came to participants in ritualistic expressions of religious ecstasy. Experiencing and witnessing such expressions gave participants confidence.” Preachers in Texas did exactly this; they encouraged African Americans to fight for rights. A minister's words carried great meaning to the congregation and broader society. Their endorsement of a particular tactic prodded blacks to action.¹³

The military gave African Americans another avenue of uplift. Both world wars allowed them to prove their patriotism as a way to secure rights. They responded by enlisting in large numbers. During World War I, blacks provided 25 percent of all troops from Texas. Yet African American soldiers found no real appreciation for the role they played in the war. On the contrary, white Texans were particularly hostile to the idea of blacks in uniform. This enmity came to a head before and after the war. In 1906, for instance, the army assigned the 25th Infantry to guard duty in Brownsville. Local whites constantly harassed these black troops, and in response a group of twenty soldiers marched on the town and killed one man. This Brownsville Affray provoked such anger from whites that President Theodore Roosevelt discharged the entire infantry without honor. The bloodiest of the World War I riots occurred in Houston, where black soldiers mutinied in 1917 after Houston police beat a popular black officer. They marched on downtown and killed five police officers and ten other whites in several skirmishes. The troops eventually returned to camp voluntarily. The Army court-martialed 120 soldiers, 19 of whom received the death penalty and were hanged.¹⁴

The racism blacks experienced on a daily basis, and the instances of discrimination within the military, facilitated the growth of civil rights activism in Texas. The most important civil rights organization in Texas was the NAACP, formed by a group of blacks and whites in New York City in 1909. African Americans in Texas founded the Lone Star State's first NAACP chapter in El Paso in 1915.¹⁵ The Dallas chapter, which would become the state's most powerful, was organized in 1917.¹⁶ The Houston Riot led to the formation of the NAACP chapter in the Bayou City, which began operations during the trial of the black soldiers in 1918. By 1919 the NAACP had thirty-one branches and over seven thousand members in Texas.¹⁷ Association leaders came primarily from the legal profession and the ministry, including attorneys George Flemmings, L. Clifford Davis, Crawford Bunkley, and William Durham, and ministers Ernest Estell, Claude Black, H. Rhett James, and Moses Price. In addition, A. Maceo Smith, Clarence Laws, Juanita Craft, and Lulu White volunteered their time to association work.

The NAACP was committed to challenging racism throughout the United States. In Texas, this translated into a quest for voting rights, educational equality, the prohibition of lynching, and, eventually, protests. But local racists and the state government constantly threatened to expel the NAACP from the state. These threats went along with the reemergence of the Ku Klux Klan in the 192...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Fighting Their Own Battles
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• Acronyms and Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1 Advancing the Cause of Democracy
• 2 Sleeping on Another Man's Wounds
• 3 Nothing but Victory Can Stop Us
• 4 Venceremos
• 5 Am I My Brother's Keeper?
• 6 The Day of Nonviolence Is Past
• 7 Pawns, Puppets, and Scapegoats
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index