Texas Black History Preservation Project Documenting the Complete African American Experience in Texas -- "Know your history, know yourself"
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TBHPP Bookshelf
Published scholarship on black history in Texas is growing
and we'd like to share with you some suggested readings,
both current and past, from some of the preeminent history
scholars in Texas and beyond. This list will grow and we
welcome your suggestions for additions. Contact us if you'd
like to submit a book review.
We hope you will help support our work by purchasing books
and other items through AmazonSmile for which a small
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Featured Publication
Cutting Along the Color Line Black Barbers and Barber Shops in America
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Edited by Quincy T. Mills
Not specifically a title focusing on black history in Texas, but we came across this book and couldn't
resist presenting it given that the first black barber college was founded in Tyler by Henry Miller Morgan in
1933. Morgan established Tyler Barber College, the first national chain of barber colleges for African
Americans, with schools located from Texas to New York. At one time, almost 80 percent of all black
barbers in America were trained at Morgan’s schools.
Black-owned barber shops play a central role in African American public life. The intimacy of
commercial grooming encourages both confidentiality and camaraderie, which make the barber shop an
important gathering place for African American men to talk freely. But for many years preceding and even
after the Civil War, black barbers endured a measure of social stigma for perpetuating inequality: though
the profession offered economic mobility to black entrepreneurs, black barbers were obliged by custom to
serve an exclusively white clientele. Quincy T. Mills traces the lineage from these nineteenth-century
barbers to the bustling enterprises of today, demonstrating that the livelihood offered by the service
economy was crucial to the development of a black commercial sphere and the barber shop as a
democratic social space.
"Cutting Along the Color Line" chronicles the cultural history of black barber shops as businesses and
civic institutions. Through several generations of barbers, Mills examines the transition from slavery to
freedom in the nineteenth century, the early twentieth-century expansion of black consumerism, and the
challenges of professionalization, licensing laws, and competition from white barbers. He finds that the
profession played a significant though complicated role in twentieth-century racial politics: while the
services of shaving and grooming were instrumental in the creation of socially acceptable black masculinity,
barbering permitted the financial independence to maintain public spaces that fostered civil rights politics.
This sweeping, engaging history of an iconic cultural establishment shows that black entrepreneurship was
intimately linked to the struggle for equality.
About the author:
Quincy T. Mills is a Chicago native and an associate professor of history at Vassar College. He teaches
and conducts research in African American history focusing on black social movements and financial
security. Among his other works, he coauthored “Truth and Soul: Black Talk in the Barbershop.”
- The 1910 Slocum Massacre, An Act of Genocide In East Texas, by E.R. Bills, The History Press
- A History of Fort Worth in Black & White, 165 Years of African-American Life, by Richard F. Selcer, University of
North Texas Press
- A Night of Violence, by Robert V. Haynes, LSU Press
- Acting Up and Getting Down, Edited and with Introduction by Sandra Holt and Elvin Holt, University of Texas Press
- The African American Experience in Texas, An Anthology, Edited by Bruce A. Glasrud and James M. Smallwood,
Texas Tech University Press
- African Americans In El Paso, by Maceo Crenshaw Dailey, Jr., Kathryn Smith-McGlynn, and Cecilia Gutierrez
Venable, Arcadia Publishing
- African Americans in South Texas History, edited by Bruce A. Glasrud, Texas A&M University Press
- African Americans of Houston, by Ron Goodwin, Arcadia Publishing
- The African Diaspora, Edited by Alusine Jalloh and Stephen E. Maizlish, Texas A&M University Press
- The African Texans, by Alwyn Barr, Texas A&M University Press
- Afro-Mexico, Dancing Between Myth and Reality, by Anita Gonzalez, University of Texas Press
- The Amazing Age of John Roy Lynch, by Chris Barton, Eerdman's Books for Young Readers
- And Grace Will Lead Me Home, by Michelle M. Mears, Texas Tech University Press
- Anti-Black Violence in Twentieth Century Texas, edited by Bruce A. Glasrud, Texas A&M University Press
- Before Brown -- Heman Marion Sweatt, Thurgood Marshall, and the Long Road to Justice, by Gary M. Lavergne,
University of Texas Press
- Black Churches, A Guide to Historic Congregations, by Clyde McQueen, Texas A&M University Press
- Black Cinema Treasures, Lost and Found, by G. William Jones, University of North Texas Press
- Black Cowboys of Texas, edited by Sara R. Massey, Texas A&M University Press
- Black Dixie: Afro-Texan History and Culture in Houston, edited by Howard Beeth and Cary Wintz, Texas A&M
University Press
- Black Soldiers In Jim Crow Texas, 1899-1917, by Garna L. Christian, Texas A&M University Press
- Black Texans, A History of Negroes In Texas, 1528-1971, by Alwyn Barr, Jenkins Publishing
- Black Women In Texas History, edited by Bruce Glasrud and Merline Pitre, Texas A&M University Press (Note:
Winner 2008 Liz Carpenter Award for the best book on Texas Women's History)
- Blacks In East Texas History, Edited by Bruce A. Glasrud & Archie P. McDonald, Texas A&M University Press
- Blood On German Snow, by Emiel W. Owens, Texas A&M University Press
- Brave Black Women, From Slavery to the Space Shuttle, by Ruthe Winegarten and Sharon Kahn, University of
Texas Press
- Bricks Without Straw, A Comprehensive History of African Americans in Texas, Written and Edited by David A.
Williams, Eakin Press
- Brothers In Arms, by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Anthony Walton, Crown Archetype
- The Brownsville Raid, by John D. Weaver, Texas A&M University Press
- The Buffalo Soldier Tragedy of 1877, by Paul H. Carlson, Texas A&M University Press
- Civil Rights in the Texas Borderlands, by Will Guzman, University of Illinois Press
- Crossing the Continent, 1527-1540, The Story of the First African-American Explorer of the American South
(Esteban), by Robert Goodwin, HarperCollins
- Cutting Along the Color Line, Black Barbers and Barber Shops In America, by Quincy T. Mills, University of
Pennsylvania Press
- The Dance of Freedom, Texas African Americans during Reconstruction, by Barry A. Crouch, University of Texas
Press
- Destiny of Democracy: The Civil Rights Summit at the LBJ Presidential Library, by Mark Updegrove, The LBJ
Presidential Library and the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin
- Disney's Most Notorious Film -- Race, Convergence, and the Hidden Histories of Song of the South, by Jason Sperb,
University of Texas Press
- Dog Ghosts, The Word on the Brazos, by J. Mason Brewer, University of Texas Press
- down in houston, Bayou City Blues, by Roger Wood, University of Texas Press
- Early Texas Schools, A Photographic History, text by Mary S. Black, photographs by Bruce F. Jordan, University of
Texas Press
- Eli Reed: A Long Walk Home, by Eli Reed, University of Texas Press
- Fair Ways, How Six Black Golfers Won Civil Rights in Beaumont, Texas, by Robert J. Robertson, Texas A&M
University Press
- Free Blacks in Antebellum Texas, edited by Bruce A. Glasrud and Milton S. Jordan, University of North Texas Press
- The Freedman's Bureau and Black Texans, by Barry A. Crouch, University of Texas Press
- Freedom Colonies, Independent Black Texans During the Time of Jim Crow, by Thad Sitton and James H. Conrad,
University of Texas Press
- From Slave to Statesman, The Legacy of Joshua Houston, Servant to Sam Houston, by Patricia Smith Prather &
Jane Clements Monday, UNT Press
- Glory Road, by Don Haskins with Dan Wetzel, Hatchette Book Group
- Go Down, Old Hannah, by Naomi Mitchell Carrier, University of Texas Press
- Guts: Lengendary Black Rodeo Cowboy Bill Pickett, by Cecil Johnson, The Summit Group
- Henry Ossian Flipper: First Among Equals, by Tom Mangelsdorf, Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
- Hope's Gift, by Kelly Starling Lyons, G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers
- In Search of the Blues, by Bill Minutaglio, University of Texas Press
- Invisible Texans, Women and Minorities in Texas History, edited by Donald Willett and Stephen Curley, McGraw-Hill
- Island of Color: Where Juneteenth Started, by Izola Ethel Fedford Collins, AuthorHouse
- I've Been Out There, by Grady Gaines, Texas A&M University Press
- Jazz Mavericks of the Lone Star State, by Dave Oliphant, University of Texas Press
- The Jemima Code, Two Centuries of African American Cookbooks, by Toni Tipton-Martin, University of Texas
Press
- Juneteenth Texas, edited by Francis Edward Abernethy, Alan Govenar, and Patrick B. Mullen, University of North
Texas Press
- The Kids Got It Right, by Jim Dent, Thomas Dunne Books
- The Laws of Slavery In Texas, edited by Randolph B. Campbell, compiled by William S. Pugsley and Marilyn P.
Duncan, UT Press.
- Leavin' A Testimony, Portraits from Rural Texas, By Patsy Cravens, University of Texas Press
- Make Haste Slowly: Moderates, Conservatives, and School Desegregation in Houston, by William Henry Kellar,
Texas A&M University Press
- The Moor's Account, by Laila Lalami, Pantheon
- Muskoga, Black Seminole Indians of Mexico and Texas, by Doug Sivad
- No Color Is My Kind, The Life of Eldrewey Stearns and the Integration of Houston, by Thomas R. Cole, University
of Texas Press
- The Other Great Migration: The Migration of Rural Blacks to Houston, 1900-1941, by Bernadette Pruitt, Texas
A&M University Press (Note: Winner of the 2014 Ottis Lock Award for the best book on East Texas History)
- Otis Taylor -- The Need To Win, by Otis Taylor with Mark Stallard, Sports Publishing LLC
- Poet, The Remarkable Story of George Moses Horton, by Don Tate, Peachtree Publishers
- Portraits of Community: African American Photography In Texas, by Alan Govenar, Texas State Historical Assn.
Press
- Race and the Houston Police Department, 1930-1990, by Dwight Watson, Texas A&M University Press
- Racial Borders, Black Soldiers Along the Rio Grande, by James N. Leiker, Texas A&M University Press
- Reaping a Greater Harvest, African Americans, the Extension Service, and Rural Reform in Jim Crow Texas, by
Debra A. Reid, Texas A&M University Press
- Recovering Five Generations Hence, The Life and Writing of Lillian Jones Horace, Edited by Karen Kossie-
Chernyshev, Texas A&M University Press
- Remembering the Days of Sorrow, the WPA and the Texas Slave Narratives, by Ronald E. Goodwin, State
House/McWhiney Foundation Press
- Requiem For A Classic, the Thanksgiving Turkey Day Classic (Jack Yates-Phillis Wheatley football game), by
Thurman W. Robins, Ed.D., AuthorHouse
- Dethroning the Deceitful Port Chop, Rethinking African American Foodways, From Slavery to Obama, Edited by
Jennifer Jensen Wallach, University of Arkansas Press
- Silent Gesture, The Autobiography of Tommie Smith, by Tommie Smith with David Steele, Temple University Press
- Slam Dunk to Glory, by David Lattin, White Stone Books
- Soul of the Man: Bobby "Blue" Bland, by Charles Farley, University Press of Mississippi
- A Southern Family In White and Black, by Doug Hales, Texas A&M University Press
- Southern Black Women in the Civil Rights Movement, edited by Bruce Glasrud and Merline Pitre, Texas A&M
University Press (Note: Winner of the 2014 Liz Carpenter Award for the best book on Texas Women's History)
- Styling Jim Crow, African American Beauty Training During Segregation, by Julia Kirk Blackwelder, Texas A&M
University Press
- They Cleared the Lane, by Ron Thomas, University of Nebraska Press
- Through Many Dangers, Toils, and Snares: Black Leadership in Texas, 1870-1890, by Merline Pitre, Eakin Press
- Tomlinson Hill: The Remarkable Story of Two Families who Share the Tomlinson Name -- One White, One Black,
by Chris Tomlinson, Thomas Dunne Books.
- Two Texas Race Riots, by Fred L. McGhee, Fidelitas Publishing
- Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson, by Geoffrey C. Ward, Vintage Books
- Victory Courts: The Story of Coach Robert Hughes and the PVIL I.M. Terrell Panthers, by Robin L. Hughes,
CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
- Walls That Speak, by Olive Jensen Theisen, University of North Texas Press
- We Could Not Fail, by Richard Paul and Steven Ross, University of Texas Press
- Wheresoever My People Chance to Dwell, edited by Maceo C. Dailey, Jr., and Kristine Navarro, Black Classic Press
Published scholarship on black history in Texas is growing and we'd like to share with you some suggested readings, both current and past,
from some of the preeminent history scholars in Texas and beyond. Each week, we will offer a featured selection. Check back regularly as
our list grows. We welcome suggestions and reviews. -- Eds.