Two black sheets stood in the blazing sun at Martyrs’ Park in downtown Dallas on Saturday as city leaders, volunteers and other attendees gathered for the unveiling of two long-awaited memorials honoring victims of racist violence.
Installed by the Texas Historical Commission, two glossy gray and black signs tower above visitors who want a closer look, telling the stories of four Black men lynched in the mid-1800s. The park serves as “a memorial to the inhuman legacy of slavery in Dallas and to the four Black men lynched,” one sign reads.
“Yes, this city has a bad history,” Mayor Pro Tem Tenelle Atkins told a crowd of several dozen people gathered Saturday. “But what are we going to do about it? How are we going to write down the history of Dallas?”
The signs are just the latest step in an effort to raise awareness of racist violence and injustice in the city.
One of the monuments honors Jane Elkins, the first recorded person purchased as a slave in Dallas County and the first woman legally executed by hanging in the state. The other monument honors three men who were lynched at the site: Patrick Jennings, Kate Miller and the Reverend Samuel Smith.
Their names are inscribed on “Shadow Lines,” a sundial-style steel sculpture that the city dedicated in March to them and to all victims of lynchings and racial discrimination between 1853 and 1920.
“It was a historic moment,” said Ed Gray, a local historian and activist. Dallas Morning News It’s important to remember and share the stories of people who “mean nothing to American society” in the past, said Gray, who is also executive director of the Dallas County Justice Initiative and on the board of Remember Black Dallas, two nonprofits that he said have spearheaded the effort.
“We give them a life,” Gray said. “We give them a voice when someone else would stop them from being heard.”
A piece of Dallas history
The park, adjacent to the Sixth Floor Museum and grassy knoll in Dealey Plaza, was established in 1991 and covers just under an acre.
Cars whizzed by from the triple underpass and the access ramp to Interstate 35E on Saturday as speakers, including Mayor Eric Johnson, spoke. Mayor Johnson said he feels the memorial both honors the past and shows “how far our city has come.”
“We as a city must not shy away from the difficult parts of our history,” Johnson said. “We must acknowledge those difficult parts and confront them head on.”
Gray said the headstone would have lost its impact if it had been placed anywhere else. In addition to the three men killed at the site, slaves in Dallas County were frequently whipped there, he said.
The lynching marked the area in the 1860s, but it drew parallels with the assassination of President John F. Kennedy a century later, he said.
“We want people to realize that it’s a sacred and holy place,” he said. “It’s as sacred and holy as the ‘X’ that people painted in the street to mark the spot where President Kennedy lost his life.”
Giving a voice to those who deserve honor
Elkins was found guilty of murdering her white owner, Andrew Wisdom, and executed by hanging in 1853. A memorial in her honor notes that she was tried before a white male jury, during which she was not allowed to testify and did not have a defense attorney.
The sign reads, “A few years later, in 1880, Galveston Daily News According to the article, she was the first person to report Wisdom’s death, and although she accused others of the crime, Elkins became the sole prime suspect.
“Her body was not her own,” the Rev. Sherron Patterson said Saturday. “Her actions were not her own.”
Jennings, Miller and Smith were falsely accused in connection with a downtown fire and hanged on the newly built gallows in 1860. Their gravestones read: A Committee of 100 Whites ordered all slaves in Dallas to be whipped.
Gray said Smith, as a pastor, had political power and influence in the community, and Miller was highly respected by other black men and women on the Overton Plantation in Dallas County.
“He was a slave, but he ran things on the plantation,” Gray said of Miller. “For a black man to run things sends a message to other African-American men and women that they can run things, too. They can be important. They can be respected.”
Other memorials dealing with racist violence have also been dedicated in the city in recent years. The Dallas County Justice Initiative has worked for years to fulfill the requirements of the Equal Justice Initiative, which is erecting the National Peace and Justice Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama, and has created two memorials in Dallas, to Allen Brooks and William Allen Taylor.
The gravestone for Brooks, who was kidnapped, murdered and hanged downtown in front of a large crowd in 1910, was unveiled at Pegasus Plaza in November 2021. The gravestone for Taylor, who was lynched near the Trinity River in 1884, was unveiled in Trinity Overlook Park last November. Both men’s names are inscribed in a sculpture at Martyrs’ Park.
“This is a part of history that cannot, for lack of a better word, be swept under the rug or forgotten,” Gray said.
Hope for the city
At Saturday’s unveiling, the smell of fresh mulch filled the air and visitors seemed to take note of the park’s landscaping improvements. “This land was previously covered in vines, shrubs and weeds,” said Trent Williams, a former senior program manager for the Dallas Parks and Recreation Department.
The park service has led an effort over the last year to make space for memorials and historical markers, he said. New trees and shrubs have been planted.
As debate continues over removing Confederate statues, city council members expressed interest in a memorial to victims of racist violence in 2018. There has been debate since the project to install the memorial began, Beverly Davis, vice president of Remember Black Dallas, said at the event.
“Some people said, ‘Why would you want to bring something negative to light that’s damaging Dallas’ reputation?'” she said.
Davis said Remember Black Dallas founder George Keaton Jr. always said, “This is not black history. This is our shared history. This is American history.”
Keaton worked to put his ideas of historic preservation into practice until his death in 2022. Several speakers at the dedication ceremony paid tribute to Keaton and his influence. Along with Gray, community groups and city officials have continued to carry on his work.
“It’s been a huge undertaking to get this done,” Gray said of Martyrs’ Park and the two new historical markers.
Gray praised the work of former Mayor TC Broadnax and Interim Mayor Kimberly Tolbert, who helped remove “obstacles” to allow for the installation of the memorial and historical marker.
Speaking at the unveiling, Mayor Tolbert urged attendees to “remain hopeful” and continue working to “break down the barriers that have divided us” in order to draw people back to the city.
“My wish for this city and for all of you here this morning is that as you revisit this place, you remember that these memorials are really an opportunity for us to cultivate gratitude in our souls,” Tolbert said. “For truth. For honor. For respect and dignity for these people.”
