Episode 68 — BLACK DALLAS: We Didn’t Get Here by Accident

Dallas has a Black history that deserves to be remembered, celebrated—and passed on.

In Episode 68 of Let’s Talk with Carl E. Long, I take a journey through the history of Black Dallas and the generations of people who fought, built, organized, taught, created, competed, voted, and persevered to make this city what it is today.

This isn't just a story about racism and segregation. It's a story about what Black Dallas did in spite of them.

We talk about Freedman's Town and Tenth Street, the Black cultural and musical legacy of Deep Ellum, Fair Park, the Hall Street corridor, Pilgrim Rest Missionary Baptist Church, and the history that was literally paved over as highways and development changed historic Black neighborhoods.

We travel to West Dallas, where Black residents fought for decent housing, basic city services and environmental justice, and we remember leaders such as Mattie Nash who refused to allow their communities to be ignored.

We visit Hamilton Park, a community that became a center of Black homeownership, education and professional life, and remember the importance of Black teachers and educators who prepared generations of children to succeed in a society that didn't always give them an equal opportunity.

And this story is personal for me.

I talk about school desegregation in Dallas and my own experience in 1971 as a Black child entering a previously White school. Brown v. Board of Education happened in 1954—but meaningful school desegregation in Dallas came much later. Some of us didn't just read about this history.

We lived it.

We also talk about sports—from Dallas' Black baseball history and my father's own connection to it, to the legendary 1988 Dallas Carter Cowboys, and the complicated story surrounding a championship that remains part of Dallas sports history.

And we look at the political struggle: Juanita Craft, Al Lipscomb, Roy Williams, Marvin Crenshaw, the fight for representation at Dallas City Hall, the 14-1 council system, and the eventual election of Ron Kirk as Dallas' first Black mayor.

Then look at Dallas County today—from the historic Black neighborhoods that built this city to communities such as DeSoto and Cedar Hill, where generations of Black professionals, entrepreneurs and homeowners have continued building wealth and opportunity.

But there's a reason I'm telling this story right now.

Our ancestors organized for it.

They paid poll taxes to exercise it.

They marched for it.

They went to court for it.

They registered their neighbors for it.

And some risked everything simply to be counted.

So when we're disappointed with politics—or when the candidate we supported doesn't win—we need to remember where we came from before deciding that our vote doesn't matter.

I'm not asking anyone to blindly support a political party or candidate.

I'm asking us to know our history, study the choices in front of us, make informed decisions, and never casually surrender something generations before us fought so hard to obtain.

Because when you understand the history of Black Dallas, one thing becomes very clear:

We didn't get here by accident.

And the next chapter won't be written by accident either.

Let's Talk.

— Carl E. Long
Let's Talk with Carl E. Long — Episode 68

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The right to vote was never handed to us.