“The past is never dead,” William Faulkner hauntingly reminds us of the South, “It’s not even past.” Black History Month is an important time for reflecting upon our past and present, dedicating time to explore aspects of Denton history both praiseworthy and shameful as we together strive towards the betterment of our community. Yet remembrance and public memory are never without struggle, which has been true since back in the day.
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Myrtle Bell Moten, the 13-year-old daughter of Quakertown physician Dr. Moten, ca. 1923, not long after her family moved away from Denton TX. Read Meyer’s White Lilacs and you may recognize the character.
BACK IN THE DAY: JUNETEENTH
2015 is the 150th sesquicentennial anniversary of the end of The Great War Between the States, the American Civil War, which formally ended with General Lee’s surrender at Appomattox Courthouse on 9 April of 1865 and the capture of CSA President Jefferson Davis in May. But exactly when the war concluded, or maybe even if it ever really has, is a bit tougher to pin down. Yet the punctuation mark for Texas is decidedly June 19th of 1865, when a Union armada brought emancipation-by-gunpoint to Galveston TX under the command of General Gordon Granger. Celebrated in most states today as Juneteenth, just two weeks before the 4th of July celebrations of America’s independence from British rule, it is a holiday marking the symbolic end of the “peculiar institution” of American slavery… but it is also the beginning of a long struggle to fully realize America’s Constitutional promise of full equality under the law. Luckily, a Juneteenth history tour will recall the stories of Denton’s African-American communities from back in the day.
Read MoreBACK IN THE DAY: THE ‘WHITE LILACS’ OF QUAKERTOWN
February is African-American History Month, an important opportunity to look back at Denton’s own intriguing past. Today we’re gonna look at the true facts behind the historical fiction White Lilacs (1993), Carolyn Meyer’s novelization of the forced eviction for Denton’s African-American Quakertown district during the 1920s. The stories behind the story offer critical reminders why Black History Month is so necessary to counter persistent political revisionism to our impaired public memory.
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