This dissertation traces the history of Edwards High School in Gonzales, Texas, from its origins in the late 1800s through its closure in 1965 and situates Edwards within the larger framework of secondary schooling for African-Americans in Texas. Although more than two hundred high schools for African-Americans existed in Texas for some period by 1947, little is known about these institutions, especially those located in small towns. Schooling for African-Americans following the Civil War was irregular and normally consisted only of elementary grades. As more schools became available, black students received an inequitable share of resources for their education and they did not share in the groundswell of high schools available to white students. Many of the high schools that became available to African-Americans during the first part of the twentieth century were located in urban areas. Little is known of the secondary institutions for African-Americans in the small towns of Texas. This study serves to recount the story of one such school. The study pays particular attention to the students, teachers, and curriculum of Edwards High School, focusing on the years between 1935 and 1965, the year the school closed due to desegregation. Archival materials provided information on student demographics, enrollment and attendance patterns, as well as student participation in activities. Oral history interviews offered a glimpse into the lived experience of those who attended Edwards High. Teachers’ certification records and salary data informed an understanding of Edwards High School’s faculty. The study sheds light on the relationship between teachers and students and between faculty and the larger African-American community in Gonzales. The curriculum of Edwards High changed over time. Changing state classification and accreditation standards provided the impetus for these changes. This examination of Edwards High School informs a greater understanding of secondary education for African-Americans in Texas. / text

This thesis is written on the subject, state fully, "A Comparison of the Education Opportunities of the Whites and Negores of Walker County." The study is based, as far as possible, on a per-pupil comparison. The writer found Walker County an excellent county in which to make such a study for the simple reason that there was not another county in the state of Texas where there was such an equal balance of negro and white approved scholastics. The counties of Harrison, Marion, San Jacinto, Walker, and Waller were the only ones in the state of Texas that had more approved negro scholastics than white approved scholastics. In Walker county during the year 1937-1938 there were 2,498 white scholastics and 2,505 negro scholastics. This shows that there were only seven more negro approved scholastics than white approved scholastics.

This thesis is a descriptive account of the history of Negroes in Texas including how they came to reside in Texas, their population trends, and the developments they have made since 1900 in areas such as politics, education, and the work force.

"The theme of this work centers around the Negro and his association with the Radical Republican party. For eight years this party controlled the state government of Texas and, the Negro's participation during this period cannot be overlooked. The Negro possessed, at this time, two valuable assets, the right of suffrage and a strength in numbers. It was through the careful coordination of these two assets that the Radicals were able to gain and maintain control of Texas politics."--Leaves iii-iv.

This study evaluated the relative association of socioeconomic, minority group and housing characteristics of census tracts with the racial composition of residential areas within one southwestern city between 1950 and 1980. The unit of analysis was the census tract; the data were taken from the U.S. Census of Population and Housing 1950-1980 for the Fort Worth, Texas SMSAs. The Index of Dissimilarity compared racial segregation in the Fort Worth urbanized area for blacks with all others (1950-1980) and for Spanish and non-black minorities with all others (1960-1980). The data show little change in the extent of residential segregation over 30 years. The multiple regression showed that the degree of segregation in census tracts became increasingly predictable based on past minority concentration in the same neighborhood. Lagged social status and minority group variables significantly predicted the percent of the population that was black or Spanish in census tracts ten years later. Beta weights for percent black or percent Spanish were always the strongest in each tract regression and largely determined the level of segregation that existed in tracts ten years later. This paper asserts that social status characteristics must approach more equal levels between minority and majority groups before integrated neighborhoods can reasonably be expected. Yet many of these variables are still highly associated with black and Spanish areas. Rising income and improved housing in black census tracts give some basis for believing that in time these variables will narrow sufficiently to give more choice in residential housing. Although Spanish tracts are only about 65% as segregated as black census tracts and although the association of the variables with Spanish residential areas are never as strong as with black census tracts, still, with increased Spanish immigration in recent years and the downward trend found in social status factors within areas of Spanish concentration, Spanish residential areas may face increasing risks of greater segregation. It is recommended that emphasis on educational attainment and occupational training be continued, possibly augmented with civic programs designed to facilitate movement away from dynamic clustering.

The purpose of this study is to determine the status of the educational opportunities of the white and the colored child in the State of Texas during the year of 1935-36 and to locate the inequalities with reference to: building equipment, transportation, library facilities, teachers, average daily attendance of pupils, teacher-pupil ratio, per pupil cost of instruction, age-grade distribution, and age of pupils when graduated. The study found the following conclusions: The building value per pupil enrolled in the white schools was over three times as much as the building value per pupil enrolled in the colored schools. Nearly twice as much was spent to transport a white child to school as was spent to transport a colored child to school. The libraries in the white schools had five times as many volumes per pupil enrolled as did the libraries in the colored schools. The value of libraries, per pupil enrolled, was about five times as much in the white schools as in the colored schools, along with several more.

As a contribution to the general problem of Negro education, this study has undertaken to compare the holding power of the Negro schools and the White schools in Fort Worth, Texas, to determine whether or not there is a significant difference. It is also the purpose of the study to discover and analyze the reasons for the withdrawal and non-attendance of Negro students. A further purpose is to determine whether or not any significant difference has been achieved in the holding power of the Negro schools in the last three years by practices fostered by the Gilmer-Aiken school laws or by recent efforts made to equalize the educational opportunity afforded Negro scholastics with the educational opportunity afforded White scholastics in Fort Worth.

Overall this thesis analyzes a strain of the white supremacist vision in Denton, Texas via a case study of a former middle-class black neighborhood. This former community, Quakertown, was removed by white city officials and leaders in the early 1920s and was replaced with a public city park. Nearly a century later, the story of Quakertown is celebrated in Denton and is remembered through many sites of memory such as a museum, various texts, and several city, county, and state historical markers. Both the history and memory of Quakertown reveal levels of dominating white supremacy in Denton, ranging from harmless to violent. Chapters 2, 3, and 4 focus on the history of Quakertown. I begin chapter 2 by examining as many details as possible that reveal the middle-class nature of the black community and its residents. Several of these details show that Quakertown residents not only possessed plentiful material items, but they also had high levels of societal involvement both within their community as well as around Denton. Despite being a self-sufficient and successful community, Quakertown residents were not immune to the culture of racial fear that existed in Denton, which was common to countless towns and communities across the South during the Jim Crow era. I identify several factors that contributed to this culture of fear on the national level and explore how they were regularly consumed by Denton citizens in the 1910s and 1920s. After establishing Quakertown and the racist society in which it thrived, in chapter 3 I then examine the various sects of what I term the “white coalition,” such as local politicians, prominent citizens, and city clubs and organizations, who came together to construct a reason to remove the black community out of fear because of its proximity to the white women’s college, the College of Industrial Arts. I then look at the steps they took that secured the passage of the bond referendum that would allow them to legally remove the black neighborhood. Chapter 4 largely focuses on the ways in which the white coalition ensured the black community was transferred from Quakertown to its new community on the outskirts of town, Solomon Hill, from 1922-1923. These ways overwhelmingly included outright racial violence or the repeated threat of it. I then briefly describe the quality of Solomon Hill in the years after the relocation. I also summarize how and why the story of Quakertown was lost over time–among both white and black citizens–and conclude with the discovery of a Quakertown artifact in 1989, which initiated the renaissance period of Quakertown’s memory. In chapters 5 and 6 I switch gears and analyze the memory of Quakertown today via sites of memory. I begin by providing a brief historiography of New South memory studies in chapter 5. This review is important before delving into the specifics of the memory of Quakertown, because 1920s Denton was a microcosm of the New South, specifically in terms of race relations and dominating white supremacist ideals. I explore some of the different techniques utilized by memory historians to evaluate how and why the white supremacist vision dominated the southern region during the Jim Crow era; I, in turn, then use those same techniques to reveal how the white supremacist vision in Denton dominated at the same time. In chapter 6 I provide in-depth analysis of the most prominent sites of memory in Denton that, today, are dedicated to the memory of Quakertown. Collective analysis of these sites reveals levels of white exploitation, blatant omissions, and general misuse surrounding the story of the black removal and experience. I conclude my thesis by stressing that although the white vision today is shaped differently than it was during Jim Crow, it nonetheless still exists in Denton today, as evidenced in the treatment of the sites of Quakertown’s memory.

"This research study shall be the advancement of the Negro within business and professional enterprises in Texas since 1900. The objective is to discover if and where the colored people have made progress. If progress has been made, it must be due to some prevailing influence, and if no progress has been made, there has evidently been some hindering cause. This research shall try to discover these factors and record the results as they affected the progress of these people. It is the intention of this writer to race the educational, economic, and social advancement of these people and to show in what fields of endeavor they have advanced and in which fields they have failed. This advancement shall be traced from the year 1900 to the year 1950, showing the progress in ten year intervals."-- leaf 1.

The aim of this exploratory qualitative study is to identify the problems African American adolescent girls face in making eating choices and to learn how they make decisions about eating. Differences related to culture and socioeconomic status influences, and decision-making strategies were explored. Three sites in African American communities were selected for focus groups and individual adolescent girl-parent dyad interviews for data collection. Data were gathered in 5 focus groups and 4 individual adolescent girl-parent dyad interviews with African American adolescents (n=30). Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Systems Theory (EST) provided the conceptual framework for informing the analysis and interpretation of the data. Using grounded theory methods, the researcher identified the core variable or basic psychosocial problem that faced the participants was receiving mixed messages. Low income African American adolescent girls receive mixed messages about nutrition, health and foods from their microsystems that are comprised of friends and family, and from macrosystems that include textbooks and the media. Filtering the mixed messages is the basic psychosocial process that low income African American girls use to handle the barrage of mixed messages they receive from their microsystems and macrosystems regarding eating choices and exosystem influences. The process of filtering the mixed messages is comprised of five phases: Applying a lens, surveying available resources, weighing influences, then choosing alternating eating strategies and evaluating their eating choices. How the adolescent girl applies a lens, surveys resources and weighs the influences together impact the alternating eating strategies that they implement. Over time they evaluate the effectiveness of their eating choices. / text