Afro-Texans

Reared in Freedmen's Town, Texas, Emmett J. Scott was a journalist, newspaper editor, government official, author, and chief of staff, adviser, and ghostwriter to Booker T. Washington. He was frequently called "the power broker of the Tuskegee Machine": he was a Renaissance man, scholar, and political fixer. However, his life has not received a full examination until now. Built upon fifty years of research, Maceo C. Dailey's Emmett J. Scott offers fascinating detail by describing Scott's role in promoting the Tuskegee Institute. Before his death, Dailey had nearly singular access to the Scott papers at Morgan State University, which have been officially closed for decades. Readers will finally be exposed to Scott's behind-the-scenes contributions to racial uplift and will see Scott's influential role in advancing not only the Tuskegee Institute but also the Booker T. Washington agenda. Editors Will Guzmán and David H. Jackson lend their own expertise in bringing Dailey's lifetime project to fruition. Two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David Levering Lewis, a close friend of Maceo Dailey, provides a timely foreword. Former Black Panther Party chairwoman Elaine Brown, granddaughter of Emmett J. Scott, reflects on her relationship with Scott and his impact in the afterword. Taken together, this work of biography is an impressive reference and an essential endeavor of recovery, one that restores to prominence the life and legacy of Emmett J. Scott.

Prairie View A&M University is more than Texas's oldest public historically Black university-it is a crucible of political struggle and social transformation. Since its founding in 1876 on the grounds of a former slave plantation, Prairie View has stood at the forefront of the Black freedom struggle, producing generations of students, faculty, and alumni who challenged the injustices of Waller County, Texas, and beyond. Justice on "The Hill" brings together wide-ranging histories that reveal Prairie View's singular role in shaping Black political life. From the long battle for voting rights-fought through courtrooms, protests, and ballot boxes-to the galvanizing impact of Sandra Bland's story, these chapters explore the people and movements that turned a rural HBCU into a national symbol of resistance. Readers will encounter the determined students who formed the "Political Science Posse," the courage of Lulu B. White and Maude Craig Sampson Williams, the legacy of Emanuel Cleaver, and the enduring struggles against racial violence and voter suppression in Waller County. This collection underscores Prairie View's abiding truth: Activism is woven into its very fabric. Each chapter offers a unique lens-whether through women's leadership in the early twentieth century, the role of religion in protest, or the long shadow of racial violence-that together illuminate the breadth of Prairie View's contributions to American history. Edited by Will Guzmán and William T. Hoston, Justice on "The Hill" honors the institution's sesquicentennial by preserving stories of struggle, resilience, and triumph. It affirms Prairie View's reputation as not only a producer of "productive people" but also as a wellspring of political consciousness and justice-seeking, where generations of Black students transformed themselves and the nation.

Huston-Tillotson University has existed in various incarnations since 1875. This HBCU was in fact the first college or university in Austin, Texas. Their Stories, Our Stories: Four Presidents of Huston-Tillotson University is the first book about this storied institution. No person is better suited to chronicle this history than Rosalee Martin. Upon her retirement after fifty years of service to the university, U.S. Representative Lloyd Doggett said, "You have preserved the history of this institution and become part of it yourself." Their Stories, Our Stories captures Dr. Martin's fifty years, which overlapped with four university presidents from the Civil Rights era to the present. Our story starts with the third president of the institution. Dr. John Q. Taylor King Sr. came up through the ranks from student to teacher, dean, and president at age 44. Dr. Joseph T. McMillan Jr. rose to the presidency from being a member of the Board of Trustees. He brought much chaos to HT, resulting in his downfall. Dr. Larry Earvin came to HT during a time when the institution's reaffirmation was being threatened. Dr. Colette Pierce-Burnette, the first woman to lead HT, was a STEM proponent for all students, especially women. Through Dr. Martin's meticulous biographical and institutional narrative, readers will learn the nuts and bolts of university life, its trials and triumphs, and its struggles and successes.

“The Water Cries” represents an ambitious search for the location of the slave auction houses in one of America's most storied cities. The author plumbs historical documentation, sifting historical advertisements and archiving familial connections. The book is a history told by grandmothers and grandfathers. It addresses a history previously told under a different light or never told at all. These are the tales of an heir of the previously enslaved, tales of images seen and unseen, the voices of the mystical. “The Water Cries” represents a contribution to the telling the long-ignored truths of Galveston's central role in the untenable trade of human souls, slavery. The book is divided into three sections: before Emancipation (1840-1865); after Emancipation (1865-1940), with the third section providing concrete suggestions for Galveston moving forward. This latter section involves giving faces and names to the voices we hear, the creation of a historical district, and the borrowing of other communities' progress. “The Water Cries” is a contribution to the rest of us also, particularly as we continue to grapple with what W. E. B. Du Bois described as America's unique problem, the color line.