(Special to The Dallas Examiner) – It is my pleasure to recall memories of living and growing up in Dallas, a city that has also experienced needed growth and change over the years. I have lived in areas north, south and east of downtown Dallas and been inspired by many people, events and occurrences throughout my lifetime in this great city.
I was privileged to be born at the Pinkston Clinic, a hospital established in the 1927 by Dr. L. G. Pinkston and built in the State Thomas area. This hospital was so needed, because other hospitals did not accept Black people as patients, because of segregation. Segregation is the act of separating people because of their race and was the law in the United States at the time.
My parents lived in the State Thomas neighborhood in the 1940s. This is the community founded after the Civil War period by a group of newly freed slaves. They developed and created an area where the freed slaves lived in harmony and encouraged each other. We lived in the newly built Roseland Homes, public housing built for Black Americans in the 1940s. This housing development was so needed for the community because housing and home ownership was limited and segregated at the time.
The State Thomas area was nearby to many churches, schools and businesses created and owned by Black people. You had your choice of churches with ministers and leaders that encouraged the community to move forward. My parents had membership at St. James AME Church, a large three-story church built by Sidney Pittman in 1919 who was the son-in-law of Booker T Washington. Sidney Pittman was the first African American to receive a federal contract and the first practicing Black architect in Texas.
I attended St. Peters Catholic school from kindergarten to fifthgrade. It was located near the State Thomas area and walking distance from our apartment complex. Other schools such as B. F. Darrell, J. W. Ray and Booker T. Washington High Schools were close by and walking distance. In addition, doctors’ offices, pharmacists, grocery stores, barber shops, beauty salons were all conveniently close.
After a few years, my parents bought a home in the North Dallas area known by the Black community as “Elm Thicket.” This area was located next to the Love Field Airport near the intersection of Lemmon Avenue and Mockingbird Street. We loved our home and lived there approximately three years before Love Field Airport decided to extend its airport runway. Well, our family and neighbors were bought out through gentrification in 1954 and thus had to find other housing to buy.
Because of segregation, this was a challenge in our nation in the 1950s, before the Fair Housing Rights laws were created in 1968, which prohibited discrimination in housing because of race, color, national origin, religion, sex familial status, disability.
After tedious searching, my parents decided to purchase a home in the South Dallas area because those owners were willing to sell. We later discovered they were members of Temple Emanu-El, the Jewish synagogue in South Dallas. Their Temple Emanu-El was building a new temple in North Dallas and moving from the South Dallas location. According to research most orthodox and traditional Jews try to find their housing close by to the temple within easy walking distance to their synagogue. Our home was purchased from the Aaron Spelling family, whose son was a well-known Hollywood producer at the time.
After moving to the south Dallas area, I enrolled in Charles Rice Elementary School. The name of the school had recently been changed from Asher Silberstein School to Charles Rice School because the community did not approve of African American students attending a school named for a Jewish or Anglo person. Again, this was because of the segregated rules and laws.
Before the 1960s there were no junior high schools for Black students, consequently, I enrolled in Lincoln High School for seventh and eighth grades. We were fortunate to have the best teachers in the nation who taught, motivated and encouraged us all to be “lifelong” learners and seek the best education for ourselves. Some of those instructors were T.K. Cameron, C.C. Tedford, and O.J. Fountain. We were encouraged to seek and pursue a college education or career and to always be of service to our community. I was fortunate to participate in the Purple Flash Drill Team and the Harry T. Burleigh Choir, director Maurine Bailey.
All of the Lincoln faculty were selected and became motivators and examples to each student to achieve and excel in school and in life. The Lincoln High School principal, Dr. H.I. Holland sought out programs and assemblies where speakers from the community were invited to speak with students. One of the speakers was Dr. Emmett Conrad, the first African American elected to the Dallas Independent School Board. His office was located just four blocks from Lincoln High School, and he was a frequent visitor.
When I graduated from Lincoln High School, I quickly enrolled in North Texas State College – later renamed University of North Texas – and even attended summer school that year. That was an excellent choice, because I was able to see how colleges worked and how different they were from high schools. As a freshman student in the fall, I was not allowed to live in any dormitory on campus. Consequently, the Black students had to locate and find housing two to three miles from the campus in the Black community. This was another example of segregation in our society. We were fortunate that Irene Alexander, a Denton homeowner, had built homes and duplexes in the area. As a North Texas college student, we rented housing from her and shared rooms with other students who would become lifelong friends.
I graduated from North Texas State College in three years and started my teaching career. I became a teacher of music at Charles Rice Elementary, a school where I had attended just nine years prior. Education was so important in the community for all students that even citizens without children of their own recognized the need. In the 1950s and 1960s, the churches in the South Dallas community, cooperated and planned vacation bible schools for students each week in the summer, to continue the learning process and serve free lunches. Some of the churches were Salem Baptist Church, St Paul AME Church, Forest Ave Christian Church (now Warren Ave Christian Church), Good St. Baptist Church, Friendship Baptist Church and New Zion Baptist Church.
Some of the influential citizens who encouraged our community to grow and become great during this time period are as follows: A. Maceo Smith, a pioneer civil rights leader, who first taught in the Dallas Schools, but later became the regional administrator for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. L. A. Bedford was the first Black appointed municipal judge in Dallas in 1966. Kathlyn Gilliam was the first Black woman elected to the Dallas Independent School District Board of Trustees in 1980 and later became president of the Board of Trustees.
In the 1980s, our family bought a new home east of downtown Dallas. So glad we made that decision. During this time, I had been assigned to numerous schools in the Dallas ISD and Garland ISD area. One of my schools was Paul L. Dunbar where Dr. Al Roberts was principal. Dr. Roberts encouraged all teachers and staff to work extremely hard to motivate our students to do their best and learn. During this time, I received my master’s degree from Texas A&M University in administration and was encouraged by to become a school principal.
I was assigned as the new principal of Frederick Douglass Elementary School. The unique thing about this school was it had been in West Dallas, but now a new building was in the process of being built on the east side of downtown Dallas. We were able to select the faculty and staff which were previously successful in working with students in the school district. The Frederick Douglass School received several outstanding academic awards from the state and community. The Texas Successful Schools Award was presented to schools in 1992 for outstanding performance on statewide test. Out of 6,000 schools in Texas, only 125 were recognized with this monetary award.
The national magazine, Family Circle featured an article in May 1993 on a program at Frederick Douglass School Making the Parental Grade. This feature shows a picture of a young student grading his parent. Grades were given in helping with homework, praising and hugging, reading to your child, attending parent meetings. All parents wanted good grades and attended workshop and meetings, consequently, the school was recognized for outstanding parent involvement. I retired in 1999 from the education field.
I knew I was going to start a new career to help our community in real estate sales and ownership. As a young child, I remember searching for home ownership with my parents whose home had been forcibly sold through gentrification. I had obtained the Texas Real Estate License some years earlier and I enjoyed being of assistance in exploring communities with those wanting to purchase homes. I joined a real estate firm and helped other obtain their dream of home ownership.
After assisting in the sale of many properties in Dallas, Plano, Duncanville, Desoto, etc., I decided to get my credentials and become a licensed broker in the state of Texas. From there, I started the Pat Mays Realtors. I also served on several committees and boards for real estate professions. I was elected as president to the largest board, Greater Dallas Board of Realtors – now Metroplex Board of Realtors – an organization of 12,000 in the North Texas Area.
Yes, I am a citizen of Dallas and have continued to grow and experience many events, episodes and occurrence. I have witnessed the city of Dallas as it continues to grow and correct needed items like segregation and become a better place to live for all citizens.