A few years ago, Jerry McCoy received a phone call from an unfamiliar number.
On the other end of the line was Clive Siegle, a Richland College history professor working on a project with his class.
“We’re interested in the story of Little Egypt,” Siegle told him. “But we need help.”
Little Egypt was a Black neighborhood in Dallas, north of Northwest Highway between Ferndale and Audelia roads, that existed from 1883 to 1962. The community was founded by Jeff and Hanna Hill, two former slaves, who bought the 30-acre plot of land when they were freed after the Civil War. The community became known as Little Egypt, a biblical reference, because its residents were delivered from bondage.
McCoy lived in Little Egypt with his parents, Sandy and Iva McCoy, and his four siblings, George, Sandy Jr., Jo Ann and Gloria, until he was 18 years old, he told The Dallas Morning News. In 1961, his family relocated from Little Egypt to Elm Thicket-Northpark. This move was in part because their family home, which Sandy McCoy Sr. built, had electricity but no running water, like most of the homes in Little Egypt.
A year later, the rest of the community collectively decided to sell the land to a group of investors. By then, what used to be farmland surrounding Little Egypt had turned into a neighborhood, Lake Highlands, and commercial development, such as Northlake Shopping Center, Morning News archives show.
Thirty-seven moving trucks carried about 200 residents’ belongings over dirt roads — the only type of road in Little Egypt — as they moved to neighborhoods in South Dallas, Oak Cliff, Garland and Rockwall. Their family homes were brought down by bulldozers.
For decades, this freedman’s town was just a memory. Then, in late May, it was permanently commemorated with a Texas state marker after years of work by Siegle, the McCoys and others.
‘Little Egypt Project’
In 2015, Siegle, who lives a few blocks down from where Little Egypt used to be, and his colleague, anthropology professor Tim Sullivan, created a class at Richland College to research Little Egypt. Students conducted oral histories and field surveys to learn more about the old neighborhood.
They wanted to speak with former Little Egypt residents, but they didn’t know where to start looking for them, Siegle said.
So they turned to what used to be the pillar of the community, Egypt Chapel Baptist Church. When Little Egypt dissolved in 1962, the church moved to Oak Cliff. Many former residents, including Jerry McCoy, still attend the church.
A pastor connected McCoy and Siegle, and a team of students headed to the McCoy family home in Elm Thicket-Northpark. Through this first interview with McCoy and his siblings, Siegle and his students began to reconstruct what Little Egypt used to look like and who used to live there. They set up interviews with more former residents: the Hills, the Dotsys and other descendants of Little Egypt.
The end goal of the “Little Egypt Project” was to place a permanent state historical marker where the community used to exist, so it would never again be forgotten.
Siegle submitted an application to the Texas Historical Commission in 2018 to put a marker next to the Dallas Parks and Recreation Department Headquarters, he said. This location is across from the only remaining undeveloped lot of former Little Egypt, which just so happened to be where the McCoy house used to stand.
The marker was approved, and would be funded by the White Rock Rotary Club and the city of Dallas. But its installation was delayed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Keeping a century-old story alive
On May 20, more than 100 former residents of Little Egypt, members of Egypt Chapel Baptist Church and others in the community came together to celebrate the permanent marker.
Jeff and Hanna Hill’s descendants; Dallas City Council members and Dallas Park and Recreation staff; Siegle and Sullivan; Egypt Chapel Baptist Church’s pastor, the Rev. Thomas McGee; and Jerry McCoy all spoke at the event.
McCoy has lung cancer and has been undergoing chemotherapy treatments, his family told The News.
In the last two weeks of April, his side effects were so bad that he could not stand up straight, let alone walk. He was using a wheelchair. But on the morning of May 20, McCoy drove from his house in Arlington to the marker’s location in Dallas, got out of his car and walked all the way up to the podium to deliver a speech.
That’s how much it meant to him.
When the marker was unveiled, he took a breath.
“Oh man, look at this,” he said to himself.
It was the best day of his life.
The work to remember Little Egypt will not stop with the marker.
Siegle, who has retired, is in contact with the African American Museum of Dallas. He wants to transfer all the interviews, photographs and other resources he has compiled to the museum, with the hope that a Little Egypt exhibit will be created.
He said he also wants to digitally reconstruct a house in Little Egypt so people can virtually tour it. He would base this reconstruction on the McCoy home, he said, because the family has been at his side for the whole journey.
The McCoys never dreamed all of this could happen.
Jerry McCoy often goes to the marker to look at it. He feels blessed to still be alive to see it, when so many of the people he grew up with have passed on.
He would not be who he is without Little Egypt, and he is grateful his community will be remembered after they are no longer around to tell its story.