By: Rene Childress

If we only cast our eyes on the bombing violence of Birmingham we will miss the history of  the city with  perhaps the most virulent and despicable and rabid racist acts imaginable.  As rabid as they were, the racist bombers of Birmingham were amateurs compared to the bombers that rocked Dallas for decades. 

We will continue our journey to the Cosmopolitan city known as Dallas. The odyssey we are about to embark on requires not to look at just one incident or one period. It requires us to take a look at a thirty to forty year period to capture the true depravity of how African-Amercans in and around Dallas were continually terrorized and deprived of the ability to live their lives and own property. Can you imagine a time when to live without fear of dynamite in the hands of white terrorists being nonexistent? The bomb became the calling card of some white folks in Dallas. None were ever convicted. It appears that “good white people'' stood by and allowed it to happen. You can bet if the homes of white people were being bombed there would have been arrests. 

I am again getting ahead of the story. We need to look back to the Texas origin story to understand why such vitriol exists toward the descendants of former slaves. Texas was formerly a state in the United States of Mexico(Estados Unidos Mexicanos). It began its trajectory toward becoming a bastion of people owning almost from its inception. The nature of cotton farming at the time and its lack of knowledge about fertilizing and crop rotation simply wore out the soil. The greed for wealth drove white Southerners to continually look for new fertile land to replace their over cropped and less productive soil. They began to turn their gaze toward the verdant lands just across the border into Mexico. Two problems existed with the move to Mexico. First it was land in another country. Secondly slavery had been outlawed in Mexico.  This however didn’t stop the avaricious march of the southern slave owners.

They began encroaching on the lands nearest to them and moved further west. The geography of the Mexican nation allowed for these encroachments to go unchecked for years. There were no railroads. There was no telegraph. The southerners relied on the fact that there was no formal  government close at hand.  They began moving their chattel to the new “Promised Land”. As early as 1819 there were reports of African-American slaves being in Texas.  The Mexican government in attempts to control its territory and its laws ran afoul of the slave owners occupying its eastern flank. 

The current  history of the Alamo and the fight for Texas independence is all a myth in service to the spread of slavery. The new white Texans wanted to keep their slaves and the free land stolen from Mexico. They sued for independence to preserve their right to enslave people. The Texans upon independence established themselves as a slaveholding nation from inception. They even for a time were secretly receiving African slaves directly from Africa and Cuba which was supposed to be illegal at the time. Its appetite was so ravenous for slave labor  that by 1860 on the cusp of the Civil War the number of slaves swelled to one third of the population of Texas. 

Slavery in Texas took on a special more insidious nature.  Instead of it being a planter class phenomena it became more widespread and more hideous. Quoting a nineteenth century Belgian geologist visiting Texas that I found  in the recently rereleased book “The Accommodation'' he observed  “For every large old plantation of one or two hundred slaves, there are fifty small farms of ten or twenty slaves.These are the newly rich,the new slave masters who find pleasure in owning other men”. They became more invested in slavery and as a consequence more incensed when they lost their property(the slaves). Unlike the white farmers in the rest of the south these Texans felt a real loss. They were so undone as a result of the Civil War they refused to give up their slaves until six months after the war was over. They tried in every way to keep that free labor under their control. 

Fast forward to twentieth century Dallas.  This relationship between the descendants of former white slave owners and the descendants of slaves has always been contentious and horrendous. The story of Dallas is one of continual terror being rained down on the African-American Community  in and around  Dallas.  By 1923 one out of every three eligible white males in Dallas was a member of the Ku Klux Klan. They became so vicious that the National Klan headquarters in Atlanta unsuccessfully tried  to tone down their actions. Just two examples of this viciousness are enough to turn your stomach.  They kidnapped an elevator operator who worked at the Adolphus hotel from his home. He was taken out to a secluded area where they proceeded to tear his back  apart with a cowhide whip. Then, using acid proceeded to etch “KKK” on his forehead.  They then dropped him off in the lobby of the Adolphus hotel. His crime was”having relations” with a white woman. The other horrendous act that disturbed the national office was the kidnapping and castration of an African-American physician for the same offense of relations with a white woman. 

The Dallas Klan and white citizenry were unmoved by orders from Atlanta Klan headquarters. They continued on unabated.The lynch rope, murder and bombing became the tools to keep blacks in their place. Dallas became a cowardly craven warren of racial terrorists. The bombing of black people’s homes and businesses became a very popular way for whites to show their brotherly love for their “Niggers”. 

 The first victim of the bombing campaign that would stretch out over a thirty year period began in 1922. A Mr. James Lewis had just moved into a recently built home. He had been warned by his new white neighbors that he should not move in. His house was destroyed. No one was ever charged or convicted. Mr. Lewis was never compensated for his loss. The next poor soul that was allowed to be victimized by the “Good People '' of Dallas refusing  to address the racist elements in their midst was Miss Kate Garrett. Trying to live the American dream she purchased a home too close to the  all white“Old South Dallas” neighborhood. Her home was dynamited November 6,1927 a few weeks before Thanksgiving. Thankfully no one was home . No one was ever charged or convicted. She lost her home. Miss Garrett was never compensated. This was just the beginning of a consistent program to keep the African-American community from rising to middle class and property owning status. During the 1930’s there were intermittent explosions all around Dallas.  The bombings are tied to black workers trying to unionize. 

Beginning in 1940 the worst spree of “ Terrorists” bombings began anew.

October 1,1940

October 24,1940

October 26,1940

December 3,1940

December 21,1940

January 13,1941 in the morning 

January 13,1941 early afternoon

January 17,1941

February 3, 1941

February 11,1941

March 6,1941

April 14,1941

May 8, 1941 

All these listed crimes were never  resolved. No one was ever charged or convicted. None of these property owners were ever compensated for the loss of their homes. The lack of legal protection only exacerbated this racist terror.  Dallas continued to be a center of racial animus into the 1950's. Early into the year of 1950 the bombing  campaign re-energized itself. The first packaged dynamite to be ignited was at the home of a Mr.Horace Bonner. His house was demolished. 

On April 3,1950 a second bomb occurred at the home of Garland Mathis just two blocks from Bonner residence. Continuing the campaign  of bombing included the June 8,1950 destruction of Mr. Robert Shelton only hours after his family had moved into their new home. On  July 8 ,1950 an unoccupied house in South Dallas was totally destroyed by a dynamite mechanism. 

The bombings expanded to include the attempted bombing of Mrs.Birdie Mae Sharp. SHE WAS AT HOME AT THE TIME. She was able to interrupt the would-be bombers.  She ran them off with her pistol in hand. Police officers responding to shots fired arrived in time to defuse the bomb. There were a total of thirteen bombings of African-American homes in and around Dallas proper during the 1950-51 period. 

There were no convictions. 

There was never a hint of compensation from the city or the state. Good people lost their homes because of their skin color. Dallas was and continues to be a segregated town. Every Dallasite knows what neighborhood they are assigned to live based on their skin color even to this day. All those lost homes and resultant generational  wealth have created a giant chasm in the outcomes of black and white Dallasites. 

To this day this story of Dallas remains hidden in the myth that the white people of Dallas were better than their crude cousins in Birmingham,Alabama and Way Cross, Georgia and Little Rock, Arkansas and Jacksonville, Florida. This is a story worth repeating over and over again. Until the state of Texas and the city of Dallas come to grips with this history we will truly never have a free and democratic multiracial society. 

Compensation and recognition are the balm that will heal these wounds. “ Let us Not Forget”