Civil Rights: Lest We Forget The Struggle

Segregation, the norm in Texas from the end of the Civil War to 1965, ultimately could not withstand the resolve of the Civil Rights Movement.

Today, heritage sites across the state help interpret and honor the movement and its hard-fought battles that permanently ended second-class status for African Americans and guaranteed them basic rights long denied.

Credit: Fort Worth Star-Telegram Collection, University of Texas at Arlington Libraries

Wiley College, located in Marshall, served as educational institution for James Farmer, Jr., partner in founding the Congress of Racial Equality. His fellow students held sit-ins at the local Woolworth’s in 1962. Calaboose African American History Museum, housed in the 1873 San Marcos county jail, served as USO headquarters for segregated African Americans serving in World War ll. In Dallas, the Juanita J. Craft Civil Rights House is only one of three house museums in the nation honoring major female figures in the Civil Rights Movement. El Paso’s McCall Neighborhood Center commemorates the memory of Dr. Lawrence Nixon, an African American physician whose legal battles helped secure voting rights for blacks in Texas. Texas’ multiculturalism is a result of many important periods in the state’s history and the rich legacy left by the Civil Rights Movement is one of its most transformative.