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The State Fair of Texas began in 1886, and with it came segregation. For many years, Black visitors were barred from attending except on designated days.
In the 1950s, anti-segregation fair protests began to take place in the form of picketing and boycotts. In 1960, one year before the designated days were dropped and seven years before the fair was completely desegregated, The Dallas Morning News interviewed the Rev. H. Rhett James Jr., a local activist He said the fair’s “policy on desegregation is hazy and dubious. Our youth are refused on the Midway and at some shows, like the Ice Capades. I will say this, they are not immune to our pickets.”
In honor of Black History Month, The News is revisiting coverage of people who experienced segregation and those who fought against it at the State Fair of Texas.
These excerpts chronicle some of their firsthand memories.
R.C. Hickman
(R.C. Hickman was a renowned photographer who took photos of Dallas’ Black community, including the condition of segregated schools and protests, according to the Texas State Historical Association. In 1994, he published a book of his photographs titled, Behold the People: R.C. Hickman’s Photographs of Black Dallas, 1949-1961.)
Excerpt from “BLACK IMAGES - A photographer reflects on his days behind the camera”
Byline: Leslie Barker
Originally published on April 13, 1987.
R.C. Hickman shot his last photograph 15 years ago. But in his office at a South Dallas carpet store, memories of his three decades as a photographer surround him.
Other photographs show segregation, too. He has pictures of twin contests and musical productions on Negro Achievement Day, the only day blacks could visit the State Fair of Texas. When NAACP members boycotted the day, Hickman was there to capture on film as they marched and carried signs: “It’s No Achievement to be Segregated at the Fair. Stay Out.’
Juanita Craft
(Civil rights activist and politician Juanita Craft moved to Dallas in 1925. Ten years later, she joined the NAACP and began her fight for equality, desegregation and improved living conditions, according to the Dallas Public Library’s History & Archives Division. This included the desegregation of the State Fair of Texas.)
Excerpt from “IN HER FOOTSTEPS - The men and women Juanita Craft inspired are now a living legacy of the late civil rights leader”
Byline: Thomas Huang
Originally published on April 20, 1994.
The kitchen table — that’s where Juanita Craft fed fellow civil rights leaders. The barbecue pit out back — that’s where youngsters planned protests.
Here, decades ago, Mrs. Craft taught neighborhood children and teen-age members of the NAACP the importance of standing up for what they believed in.
Joe Atkins thinks of the early 1950s. The State Fair of Texas had a segregated “Negro Day.”
Every year, officials set aside one day on which blacks could attend. On that day, by tradition, blacks would enter Fair Park in a parade.
Mrs. Craft would have none of that. She discussed the parade with Mr. Atkins and other teen-agers. They held meetings at her house as part of a local youth council of the NAACP.
“She was telling us that we needed to go like everybody else, every day it was open,” Mr. Atkins, 57, recalls. As a protest, “she encouraged us as students not to participate in the parade.”
The boycott created a conflict. Students sparred with administrators who wanted them to participate in the festivities. The administrators stripped some of the students of their scholastic honors.
The fight left a lasting impression on young Joe. “I learned that people could be punished for standing up for what was the right thing to do,” Mr. Atkins says.
George Allen
(The following excerpt is the recollection of George Allen, the first Black man elected to the Dallas City Council and the namesake of Dallas’ George Allen Dallas County Civil Court building, as told to reporter Steve Kenny.)
Excerpt from “Dallas when Jim Crow was king”
Byline: Steve Kenny
Originally published Sep. 14, 1980.
“One Saturday we were riding on the Second Avenue streetcar. The State Fair of Texas was in session then, and my youngest kid said, ‘Dad, can’t we go ride on that ferris wheel?’ You could see the big ferris wheel going around, and you could hear the calliope playing.
“And it was the worst feeling, I’m sure, that a father has ever had to have to try to explain to his children without having them feeling inferior, why they couldn’t ride on that damn ferris wheel that day.
“Only one day a year could they ride. Negro Day at the Fair was the name of it. I finally, as a cop-out, I told them that Dad just didn’t have the money.
“That was the first time it was brought home dramatically to me. If I hadn’t had kids, I probably wouldn’t have worried about it as much.”
Bessie Slider Moody
(This excerpt chronicles the memories of Dallas teenagers who worked to desegregate the State Fair of Texas under the guidance of Juanita Craft. In 2008, they gathered to discuss Craft’s legacy and the protests at the Juanita J. Craft Civil Rights House & Museum at 2618 Warren Ave. in Dallas.)
Excerpt from “Decades ago, teens fought for equality — Civil rights advocate Craft, black youths battled State Fair segregation”
Byline: Karen Ayres Smith
Originally published Feb. 10, 2008.
Bessie Slider Moody was only supposed to go to the State Fair of Texas on the day reserved for black people back in 1955.
But she and other members of an NAACP Youth Council decided it was time to make a change.
Paired with her brother, Ms. Moody, then 16, walked down the midway and stood in line with white customers for the Ferris wheel, roller coaster and food. They were turned away each time - only to return again the next night.
“They would tell us to come back on colored people day,” Ms. Moody said.
It’s been 53 years since Ms. Moody and other Dallas teenagers worked to desegregate the State Fair, but Ms. Moody’s memories came to life Saturday as she sat in the home where her group launched those plans.
She and other members of Black Dallas Remembered Inc. came to the Juanita J. Craft Civil Rights House to remember Ms. Craft, the longtime civil rights advocate and the leader of Ms. Moody’s youth group.
Ms. Moody said she and other black teens gathered in the back yard for NAACP youth meetings every month. Ms. Craft also opened the house to neighborhood teens each day after school.
“I really feel privileged to be able to come back to a place I was an integral part of back in the day,” Ms. Moody said Saturday, sitting in front of two picket signs from the era on the wall of the Craft home.
Ms. Craft and NAACP lawyers gave the teenagers directions on how to approach the fair in 1955, the same year the NAACP filed a lawsuit alleging racial discrimination in separate schools for white and black children in the Dallas school district.
Ms. Moody, who attended one of the district’s black high schools, took careful notes each time she and her brother were turned away at the fair so they could give them to the lawyers.
“We never felt threatened because we knew how to handle ourselves in an amenable way,” Ms. Moody said. “Ms. Craft taught us to really be respectful and go about it in the legal way.”
Only one vendor agreed to serve the group sodas that year, but the staff wiped their hands on the top of the bottles so they were unsafe to drink, she said.
In 1961, segregation at the fair ended.
“I felt really proud that I had something to do with that change,” said Ms. Moody, a lifelong Dallas resident. “It was sort of a piece of history.”
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