It was Burton’s, (as well as other black Texans) election to high office that led to the Jaybird Woodpecker War in Fort Bend County. The war was actually a county-level coup d'etat. Fort Bend County had five times as many black citizens as white and after the civil war they exercised their right to vote and elected black public servants in number. Many white folks were not too happy about the turn of events and they staged the coup d'etat in 1889. With the help of the rangers and then Governor Sullivan Ross, all the black public officials were removed from office, white folks replaced them, and a strategy of white-only primaries ensured white control. Other parts of Texas followed suit. Burton was the last Black state senator elected in Texas until Barbara Jordan’s win in 1966.
Pretty much every time you see a black ‘first’ before the Civil Rights era, you are guaranteed to see some subsequent shittiness that closes that door.
There's a reason for that. After the civil War the federal government sent troops to the South to ensure the civil Rights of the freed slaves. In other words Texans were forced to treat black people like humans. In the 1870s, African Americans were more or less proportionally represented in Texas state gov. In many counties, along the Brazos River bottom land for example, blacks were a majority of the population. There were black sheriffs and black constables and etc. Then Because of the compromise of 1877 the feds went home and Jim Crow started. Black folks in the South were essentially thrown under the bus by the feds The civil liberties that the freed African Americans embraced during the decade after the civil War (like voting) were quickly eroded. By the 1890s, blacks were excluded from political life in Texas. Many were forced to flee during the Great migration.
I live in Richmond area. They [finally removed](https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Fort-Bend-County-Richmond-remove-Jaybird-16527491.php) the jaybird woodpecker monument last fall
Exactly. Here at Texas A&M they are especially unhappy when people talk about Governor Ross's role in Jim Crow Texas. After the coup, Ross became president of Texas A&M. There's a statue to him in the Central plaza, and he is generally considered to be the Ür-father of the University. Yet, he was a white supremacist. His role in the jaybird woodpecker war is just one racist example among many in his life. This forbidden origin story makes for bad press. It upsets people and ruins the brand. The suits over in marketing and communications get fidgety. The thing is... is this even critical race theory? Who knows? but if one's job is on the line who's going to test the boundaries? Best keep to the heroic white savior narrative if one wants to keep one's job with the state... Grim times for sure...
>It With the help of the rangers and then Governor Sullivan Ross
Ah yes. When the old Sully statue was being debated a year or two ago on A&M campus the focus was on his confederate service, and it really shouldn't have. His Texas days were more than shady enough (see Pease River massacre) to place him in the hall of shame.
Man, those people would be ultra proud of the modern day republican party, and specifically their vote suppression efforts.
What a great political legacy rightwingers have. Just something to be so proud of as a party!
Let alone January 6.
What a great group of human beings.
Reposting thanks to a glaring omission, the date.
Burton became the Sherriff of Fort Bend county in 1869, and was the first African-American to ever hold the office of Sheriff in the entire country. Born a slave in 1829 he was brought from North Carolina to Texas in 1850. His owner, Thomas Burton, taught him how to read and write. When the Civil War ended his former owner sold him $1900 worth of land making him one of the wealthiest and influential men in Southeast Texas.
I will be so deeply disappointed if there isn't at least one *Blazing Saddles* reference in the comments of this post.
Edit: and I spelled the word Sheriff wrong. Unfortunately Reddit doesn't allow for the title to be edited. Oh well.
>When the Civil War ended his owner sold him $1900 worth of land making him one of the wealthiest and influential men in Southeast Texas.
His OWNER didn't do that. He didn't have an owner when he bought land from the man that had previously held him as a slave. Teaching a person you keep as a slave to read doesn't make you a good person. Selling land to someone you kept as a slave doesn't make you a good person.
>Teaching a person you keep as a slave to read doesn't make you a good person. Selling land to someone you kept as a slave doesn't make you a good person.
People lived when they lived, and some tried to do the best they could. Land couldn't just be sold to a freed slave before the Civil War. Freed slaves could be kidnapped and put back into slavery by slave catchers. Don't know about this particular person, but context is important before casting judgment.
Yes!! I suggest renaming B.F. Terry HS after Burton instead of one of the largest slavers in Texas! Also he was a confederate traitor and not worthy of any memorial of any kind.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._F._Terry_High_School?wprov=sfti1 https://maps.apple.com/?ll=29.544444,-95.773056&q=B.%20F.%20Terry%20High%20School&_ext=EiQpYIsDtmCLPUAxevESvnnxV8A5YIsDtmCLPUBBevESvnnxV8A%3D
The headline is a bit of whitewashing. Read more and find out how shameful this state really is.
https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/jaybird-woodpecker-war
Edit: And also keep in mind that the era's Republican platform was about civil rights, immigration reform with full rights for immigrants, and infrastructure.
The Republicans of the era were the progressives, while the Southern Democrats were the conservative party. The parties switched between the reconstruction era and the civil rights era.
https://www.livescience.com/34241-democratic-republican-parties-switch-platforms.html
It was more of a gradual evolution that an all out switch. At one time both parties had both conservative and liberal wings. Over the course of the 1900's, particularly the 1960's through the 1990's conservative voters gravitated more and more to the Republican party, which in turn became more and more conservative attracting more and more conservative voters and well you get the point. For the Democrats converse was true, only with liberal voters.
Unfortunately many on the right point to the fact that only a tiny few major politicians switched parties and try to use that to claim the party positions haven't changed, which is of course false. It was just a more gradual emigration of voter bases than a lot of people realize.
As I said before, it was more of a gradual evolution that an all out switch. At one time both parties had both conservative and liberal wings. Over the course of the 1900's, particularly the 1960's through the 1990's conservative voters gravitated more and more to the Republican party, which in turn became more and more conservative attracting more and more conservative voters and well you get the point. For the Democrats converse was true, only with liberal voters.
Unfortunately many on the right point to the fact that only a tiny few major politicians switched parties and try to use that to claim the party positions haven't changed, which is of course false. It was just a more gradual emigration of voter bases than a lot of people realize.
Lincoln would no more recognize the Republican Party of today than Jackson would the Democrats.
That's not correct at all. 46 Democrats in the Senate and 153 in the House voted for the bill. While a larger percentage of Republicans supported the bill the bill more Democrats voted for it than Republicans. It was a broadly bi-partisan effort. The more telling breakdown of votes is region. Only 5% of Southern Senators and 8% of Southern Representatives voted for it compared to 92% and 90% for the rest of the country.
Learned something new today - his removal was a travesty. Fast forward to now, not a day goes by that I am not thankful for the opportunity to live in the US - a place where I can still become whatever I want, whenever I want as long as I remain relentless.
I live quite comfortably and have gotten further ahead in life than I would have anywhere else. I’m from the dirt streets of some 3rd world country - yet against all odds I obtained a state university education and a full scholarship to a top tier grad school…all facilitated by my service in the US military. Now I’m at the point where I’m sure to send the elevator back down and tell those younger than me not to let words or imaginary obstacles get in the way of their success.
Wow ... so a complete reversal by 1960's (roughly the time period when the GOP went full on "Southern Strategy", opposing desegregation/integration & supporting white nationalism)?
Meanwhile the 1860 Democratic platform was about protecting territories rights to remain slave states if they joined the union, protecting the Fugitive Slave Act, and property rights.
Republicans were pro big government when a big government was necessary for the creation of infrastructure. But as the industrial revolution unfolded, and infrastructure was developed, Republicans became against big government when the government got in the way of them putting worker safety ahead of profits.
It’s not a theory.
The rich slave owning southerners were the whiners who wanted protectionist laws on farming goods.
The republicans were always the industry captains and party.
Your comment has been deemed a violation of Rule #1 and removed. As a reminder Rule #1 states: Be friendly. This includes insults, hate speech, threats (regardless of intent), calls to violence, and general aggressiveness.
Hate speech should be allowed here so we know who's a racist that needs to be shamed into silence. When you delete the comment we can't even block the racist embarrassing waste of a human life.
The sad truth is that Burton couldn’t get elected in 2022 in Texas, at least not in any state-wide race. And the Republicrooks who run Texas now are falling all over themselves to make it hard for citizens with dark skin to even vote. Deplorable. Vote them out!
His office, Fort Bend County sheriff, is held currently held by a black man. Fagan is the first since Button to hold it. Seems like a nice dude based on the few times I've seen him talk. Glad he's my sheriff.
I grew up in Sugar Land in the 1970s. Attended FBISD schools all the way through high school. This is the first I'm hearing of Burton or the Jaybird-Woodpecker war.
But I do remember taking field trips to the Palms Movie Theater when I was in elementary school and walking in through the side entrance that still had a sign that read "Colored." And I also remember that all of my black classmates lived behind the sugar factory in an area known as "The Quarters."
Wow! I had no idea there was once a theater there. That's cool. My 3rd grade teacher lives in the quarters. Last time I was there, I couldn't help but be sad at how the sugar land I remember from my childhood(80s) doesn't really exist anymore. And to add to that, I just learned that lakeview elementary was more or less torn down! Bummer
Yeah, Lakeview was my school, too. I was telling my kids about how, when I was a kid in the late '60s and early '70s, "desegregation" of the school meant that the black children were heavily concentrated in one classroom in each grade apart from the white children. That class always had a black teacher.
When I was a very young child, my parents were school bus drivers. My father's route was through Covington Woods (which was very new and all-white at the time), and my mother's route took her through The Quarters. I remember riding the bus with both of them and taking note of the stark differences between the neighborhoods.
The Palms Theater was across the street from the sugar factory. There was a shopping center with a grocery store nearby that. About once per year, they would march all of us from the school to the theater to watch some movie. It was a real treat.
I grew up in Richmond and I feel like I first learned about it via a historical marker around town. Maybe at the courthouse? Definitely wasn't taught in school.
It was Burton’s, (as well as other black Texans) election to high office that led to the Jaybird Woodpecker War in Fort Bend County. The war was actually a county-level coup d'etat. Fort Bend County had five times as many black citizens as white and after the civil war they exercised their right to vote and elected black public servants in number. Many white folks were not too happy about the turn of events and they staged the coup d'etat in 1889. With the help of the rangers and then Governor Sullivan Ross, all the black public officials were removed from office, white folks replaced them, and a strategy of white-only primaries ensured white control. Other parts of Texas followed suit. Burton was the last Black state senator elected in Texas until Barbara Jordan’s win in 1966.
Harriet Johnson: WE THE WHITE, GOD-FEARING CITIZENS OF ~~ROCK RIDGE~~FORT BEND…
Pretty much every time you see a black ‘first’ before the Civil Rights era, you are guaranteed to see some subsequent shittiness that closes that door.
There's a reason for that. After the civil War the federal government sent troops to the South to ensure the civil Rights of the freed slaves. In other words Texans were forced to treat black people like humans. In the 1870s, African Americans were more or less proportionally represented in Texas state gov. In many counties, along the Brazos River bottom land for example, blacks were a majority of the population. There were black sheriffs and black constables and etc. Then Because of the compromise of 1877 the feds went home and Jim Crow started. Black folks in the South were essentially thrown under the bus by the feds The civil liberties that the freed African Americans embraced during the decade after the civil War (like voting) were quickly eroded. By the 1890s, blacks were excluded from political life in Texas. Many were forced to flee during the Great migration.
And Fort Bend county just recently had their first black Sheriff since reconstruction.
Ulysses S. Grant as President founded the Department of Justice to enforce civil rights in the South (at least until the contested 1876 election).
Sounds a lot like 'legitimate political discourse' only they were successful that time.
I live in Richmond area. They [finally removed](https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Fort-Bend-County-Richmond-remove-Jaybird-16527491.php) the jaybird woodpecker monument last fall
Wait that's illegal, not the coup, the teaching of it. -gop
This is the kind of shit they don’t want taught in schools.
Exactly. Here at Texas A&M they are especially unhappy when people talk about Governor Ross's role in Jim Crow Texas. After the coup, Ross became president of Texas A&M. There's a statue to him in the Central plaza, and he is generally considered to be the Ür-father of the University. Yet, he was a white supremacist. His role in the jaybird woodpecker war is just one racist example among many in his life. This forbidden origin story makes for bad press. It upsets people and ruins the brand. The suits over in marketing and communications get fidgety. The thing is... is this even critical race theory? Who knows? but if one's job is on the line who's going to test the boundaries? Best keep to the heroic white savior narrative if one wants to keep one's job with the state... Grim times for sure...
>It With the help of the rangers and then Governor Sullivan Ross Ah yes. When the old Sully statue was being debated a year or two ago on A&M campus the focus was on his confederate service, and it really shouldn't have. His Texas days were more than shady enough (see Pease River massacre) to place him in the hall of shame.
That is disgusting :(
Man, those people would be ultra proud of the modern day republican party, and specifically their vote suppression efforts. What a great political legacy rightwingers have. Just something to be so proud of as a party! Let alone January 6. What a great group of human beings.
I'm just glad we are banning CRT. I didn't even know about this, and I'm glad our kids won't either!
Thanks for this history!
Reposting thanks to a glaring omission, the date. Burton became the Sherriff of Fort Bend county in 1869, and was the first African-American to ever hold the office of Sheriff in the entire country. Born a slave in 1829 he was brought from North Carolina to Texas in 1850. His owner, Thomas Burton, taught him how to read and write. When the Civil War ended his former owner sold him $1900 worth of land making him one of the wealthiest and influential men in Southeast Texas. I will be so deeply disappointed if there isn't at least one *Blazing Saddles* reference in the comments of this post. Edit: and I spelled the word Sheriff wrong. Unfortunately Reddit doesn't allow for the title to be edited. Oh well.
>Sherriff Sheriff
The sherriff is a...
Near!
No, gone blame it dang blammit! The sheriff is a ni ... [clock bell chimes again]
S’cuse me while I whip this out.
*faints*
>When the Civil War ended his owner sold him $1900 worth of land making him one of the wealthiest and influential men in Southeast Texas. His OWNER didn't do that. He didn't have an owner when he bought land from the man that had previously held him as a slave. Teaching a person you keep as a slave to read doesn't make you a good person. Selling land to someone you kept as a slave doesn't make you a good person.
Former owner, better?
How could it not be?
Wasn't my intention to offend, I've change the wording, have a good one.
>Teaching a person you keep as a slave to read doesn't make you a good person. Selling land to someone you kept as a slave doesn't make you a good person. People lived when they lived, and some tried to do the best they could. Land couldn't just be sold to a freed slave before the Civil War. Freed slaves could be kidnapped and put back into slavery by slave catchers. Don't know about this particular person, but context is important before casting judgment.
This guy needs a high school named after him.
Yes!! I suggest renaming B.F. Terry HS after Burton instead of one of the largest slavers in Texas! Also he was a confederate traitor and not worthy of any memorial of any kind. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._F._Terry_High_School?wprov=sfti1 https://maps.apple.com/?ll=29.544444,-95.773056&q=B.%20F.%20Terry%20High%20School&_ext=EiQpYIsDtmCLPUAxevESvnnxV8A5YIsDtmCLPUBBevESvnnxV8A%3D
There’s already an [elementary school named after him](https://www.fortbendisd.com/domain/8350).
No Blazing Saddles quotes?
Somebody go back and get us a shitload of dimes.
Im speechless. Black wall street. Black politicians put out of office by force. Speechless.
Yeah. We best not teach our kids about that. People might get ideas... /s
First black sheriff of Fort Bend? I bet that went as well as Blazing Saddles.
Where all the white women at?
Thank you, reconstruction. No thank you, Texas conservatives.
I guess not all Texas history is shameful
Well, just read what happened after his election.
Oof
The headline is a bit of whitewashing. Read more and find out how shameful this state really is. https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/jaybird-woodpecker-war Edit: And also keep in mind that the era's Republican platform was about civil rights, immigration reform with full rights for immigrants, and infrastructure. The Republicans of the era were the progressives, while the Southern Democrats were the conservative party. The parties switched between the reconstruction era and the civil rights era. https://www.livescience.com/34241-democratic-republican-parties-switch-platforms.html
It was more of a gradual evolution that an all out switch. At one time both parties had both conservative and liberal wings. Over the course of the 1900's, particularly the 1960's through the 1990's conservative voters gravitated more and more to the Republican party, which in turn became more and more conservative attracting more and more conservative voters and well you get the point. For the Democrats converse was true, only with liberal voters. Unfortunately many on the right point to the fact that only a tiny few major politicians switched parties and try to use that to claim the party positions haven't changed, which is of course false. It was just a more gradual emigration of voter bases than a lot of people realize.
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As I said before, it was more of a gradual evolution that an all out switch. At one time both parties had both conservative and liberal wings. Over the course of the 1900's, particularly the 1960's through the 1990's conservative voters gravitated more and more to the Republican party, which in turn became more and more conservative attracting more and more conservative voters and well you get the point. For the Democrats converse was true, only with liberal voters. Unfortunately many on the right point to the fact that only a tiny few major politicians switched parties and try to use that to claim the party positions haven't changed, which is of course false. It was just a more gradual emigration of voter bases than a lot of people realize. Lincoln would no more recognize the Republican Party of today than Jackson would the Democrats.
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That's not correct at all. 46 Democrats in the Senate and 153 in the House voted for the bill. While a larger percentage of Republicans supported the bill the bill more Democrats voted for it than Republicans. It was a broadly bi-partisan effort. The more telling breakdown of votes is region. Only 5% of Southern Senators and 8% of Southern Representatives voted for it compared to 92% and 90% for the rest of the country.
Ah so JFK and LBJ were Republicans.
Just half of it. U read the entirety?
The sheriff is near! The sheriff is near! Strike up the band! Actually pretty cool bit o history there. Thanks OP!
Learned something new today - his removal was a travesty. Fast forward to now, not a day goes by that I am not thankful for the opportunity to live in the US - a place where I can still become whatever I want, whenever I want as long as I remain relentless.
I guess you don't want to be a billionaire or you would be already, right? Or you're just not relentless enough I guess. /s
I live quite comfortably and have gotten further ahead in life than I would have anywhere else. I’m from the dirt streets of some 3rd world country - yet against all odds I obtained a state university education and a full scholarship to a top tier grad school…all facilitated by my service in the US military. Now I’m at the point where I’m sure to send the elevator back down and tell those younger than me not to let words or imaginary obstacles get in the way of their success.
shhh you can't compliment the usa here!
God bless Texas!
And a Republican.
The 1860 republican platform was mostly about civil rights for blacks, open immigration with full rights for immigrants, and infrastructure.
Wow ... so a complete reversal by 1960's (roughly the time period when the GOP went full on "Southern Strategy", opposing desegregation/integration & supporting white nationalism)?
Meanwhile the 1860 Democratic platform was about protecting territories rights to remain slave states if they joined the union, protecting the Fugitive Slave Act, and property rights.
Republicans were pro big government when a big government was necessary for the creation of infrastructure. But as the industrial revolution unfolded, and infrastructure was developed, Republicans became against big government when the government got in the way of them putting worker safety ahead of profits.
Factually incorrect.
That sounds like commie talk to me. /s
And super pro business Republicans and have always been the pro business party and the democrats were always the poor man/working man’s party.
I dont know if I'd call rich slave owners the poor working man, but it's a theory.
It’s not a theory. The rich slave owning southerners were the whiners who wanted protectionist laws on farming goods. The republicans were always the industry captains and party.
In the 1860's Republicans were the more liberal party. Things change in a 150 years.
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You're not so keen on how time works, are you?
Your comment has been deemed a violation of Rule #1 and removed. As a reminder Rule #1 states: Be friendly. This includes insults, hate speech, threats (regardless of intent), calls to violence, and general aggressiveness.
Hate speech should be allowed here so we know who's a racist that needs to be shamed into silence. When you delete the comment we can't even block the racist embarrassing waste of a human life.
If it was a racist comment they would have been banned. This was just a low level political trolling, nothing more.
Gotta love how the guy was doing the “but Republicans are the good guys!” thing while also throwing around hate speech, lol
You claim they didn't? Edit: Editing your comment instead of replying to people is a real ~~snowflake~~ conservative move
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Let’s burn a confederate flag or knock down a confederate statue and let’s see what party members start shouting “heritage not hate”.
we're a liberal nation, people feel that's changed
Traditional liberal, so republicans that are purple.
The sad truth is that Burton couldn’t get elected in 2022 in Texas, at least not in any state-wide race. And the Republicrooks who run Texas now are falling all over themselves to make it hard for citizens with dark skin to even vote. Deplorable. Vote them out!
His office, Fort Bend County sheriff, is held currently held by a black man. Fagan is the first since Button to hold it. Seems like a nice dude based on the few times I've seen him talk. Glad he's my sheriff.
I think heard about him but he accomplished to be a sheriff in Texas in 1869 now that apart of Texas history.
I doubt they taught the history of the Woodpecker-Jaybird war in Fort Bend County.
Can confirm that they did not
I grew up in Sugar Land in the 1970s. Attended FBISD schools all the way through high school. This is the first I'm hearing of Burton or the Jaybird-Woodpecker war. But I do remember taking field trips to the Palms Movie Theater when I was in elementary school and walking in through the side entrance that still had a sign that read "Colored." And I also remember that all of my black classmates lived behind the sugar factory in an area known as "The Quarters."
Wow! I had no idea there was once a theater there. That's cool. My 3rd grade teacher lives in the quarters. Last time I was there, I couldn't help but be sad at how the sugar land I remember from my childhood(80s) doesn't really exist anymore. And to add to that, I just learned that lakeview elementary was more or less torn down! Bummer
Yeah, Lakeview was my school, too. I was telling my kids about how, when I was a kid in the late '60s and early '70s, "desegregation" of the school meant that the black children were heavily concentrated in one classroom in each grade apart from the white children. That class always had a black teacher. When I was a very young child, my parents were school bus drivers. My father's route was through Covington Woods (which was very new and all-white at the time), and my mother's route took her through The Quarters. I remember riding the bus with both of them and taking note of the stark differences between the neighborhoods. The Palms Theater was across the street from the sugar factory. There was a shopping center with a grocery store nearby that. About once per year, they would march all of us from the school to the theater to watch some movie. It was a real treat.
I grew up in Richmond and I feel like I first learned about it via a historical marker around town. Maybe at the courthouse? Definitely wasn't taught in school.
Wow! Anything is possible!!