The Dallas Express operated between 1893 and 1970, at one point claiming for itself the title of “the South’s Oldest and Largest Negro Newspaper.”[1] It was particularly known as a scathing critic of lynching during a period when Dallas and many other Southern cities and town were scenes of extrajudicial violence and lynchings of Black people. Dallas has been described as “effectively run by the Ku Klux Klan” during the 1920s, but this did not stop the Dallas Express from fighting back.[2] Between 1919 and 1921, the Dallas Express also published four articles mentioning Confederate commemoration. Three of these articles reported on events in Georgia and Virginia, far removed from the political context of Texas; the fourth discussed a Texan Confederate officer’s financial support of pro-South and Confederate memorials.
The first article briefly announced the Confederate monument at Stone Mountain, asserting that the proposed giant carving would be a memorial “to all southern men who fought in the nation’s wars” and not just “a monument to the heroes of the confederacy.”[3] Given that the Stone Mountain monument was always designed as a specifically Confederate memorial, the source of this claim is unclear. An article published in 1920 reported on Ku Klux Klan activity in Virginia, specifically mentioning the Klan’s revival at Stone Mountain in 1915. The article’s author pulled no punches in describing the Klan’s purpose: “[they] are licensed again to pillage and burn and terrorize under cover of darkness anyone who incurs their enmity, with Negroes their object in particular.”[4]
A third article covers the donation by CSA Major George Washington Littlefield of $100,000 to establish a “history of the United States, ‘with plain facts concerning the South and her acts since the foundation of the government” at the University of Texas.[5] This history was to “be truthfully taught and persons maturing since 1860 may be given the opportunity to inform themselves correctly of the South and especially of the Southern Confederacy.”[6] In addition to this pro-South university donation, the article noted Littlefield’s $40,000 gift to the building of the Jefferson Davis memorial at Jefferson Davis’s birthplace in Fairview, Kentucky.[7] (Not noted in the article was that Major Littlefield also funded a statue of CSA General Robert E. Lee on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin. It stood from 1933 to 2017 and was removed during the aftermath of the Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.)[8]
The final Dallas Express article referencing Confederate commemoration focuses on the horror of lynching. It published remarks from the Hon. Henry Lincoln Johnson, a Black Republican politician and attorney, who noted that 85% of Black citizens in Georgia—who have the legal right to vote—are barred from doing so through “Democratic intrigue and intimidation.”[9] Of lynching, he stated that
it stands to the disgrace of any state that suffers it and let mob murderers go unpunished. Greater than the question of the tariff, greater than the question of our relationship under the league of nations with Jugo-Slavia, is the absolute safety of the guarantee under the constitution that every man’s life shall be safe and never to be taken away…[10]
Lincoln declared that his purpose was to “roost right on the ankles of Congress” and advocate for “a law to put the hang man’s rope around the neck of any man who would place their rope around the neck of any man of whatever hue without the due process of law.”[11] He referenced the reorganization effort of the Ku Klux Klan as the manifestation of the spirit behind lynchings and promised to use every resource at his disposal to cripple them, declaring “Why give legal immortality to a criminal band like that? It will not be; it is not going to be under a Republican administration.”[12]
The article linked the Ku Klux Klan’s activities in Georgia to the group’s 1915 refounding at Stone Mountain. Taken together, these four articles display a consistent pattern of linking Confederate commemoration with Klan atrocities and the horrors of lynching.
Justin Seward
Please cite as:
Seward, Justin. “‘Roost Right on the Ankles of Congress’: The Dallas Express and Confederate Commemoration.” False Image of History: Perspectives on Confederate Commemoration from the Black Press (online). Fall 2024 Edition. Schaefer, Donovan O., ed. URL = https://falseimage.pennds.org/essay/“roost-right-on-the-ankles-of-congress”-the-\_dallas-express\_-and-confederate-commemoration/.
References
Library of Congress, “The Dallas Express (Dallas, Tex.) 1893-1970.” https://www.loc.gov/item/sn83025779.
Simek, Peter. “The Real Story Behind the Dallas Express.” D Magazine. June 11, 2021. https://www.dmagazine.com/publications/d-magazine/2021/june/the-real-story-behind-the-dallas-express/.
Dallas Express. “A Memorial to All Southern Men.” May 10, 1919.
Dallas Express. “Ku Klux Klan Begins Operations in Virginia.” October 9, 1920.
Dallas Express. “Money for U.S. History.” January 15, 1921.
Bromwich, Jonah Engel. “University of Texas at Austin Removes Confederate Statues in Overnight
Operation.” New York Times. August 21, 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/21/us/texas-austin-confederate-statues.html.
McCann, Mac. “Written in Stone.” Austin Chronicle. May 29, 2015. https://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2015-05-29/written-in-stone/.
Dallas Express, “Henry Lincoln Johnson Make Visit to Georgia and Speaks to Large Crowd.” February 5, 1921.
Library of Congress. “The Dallas Express (Dallas, Tex.) 1893-1970.” ↩︎
Simek. “The Real Story Behind the Dallas Express.” D Magazine. ↩︎
Dallas Express. “A Memorial to All Southern Men.” ↩︎
Dallas Express. “Ku Klux Klan Begins Operations in Virginia.” ↩︎
Dallas Express. “Money for U.S. History.” ↩︎
Dallas Express. “Money for U.S. History.” ↩︎
Dallas Express. “Money for U.S. History.” ↩︎
Bromwich. “University of Texas at Austin Removes Confederate Statues in Overnight Operation.” New York Times; McCann. “Written in Stone.” Austin Chronicle. ↩︎
Dallas Express, “Henry Lincoln Johnson Make Visit to Georgia and Speaks to Large Crowd.” ↩︎
Dallas Express, “Henry Lincoln Johnson Make Visit to Georgia and Speaks to Large Crowd.” ↩︎
Dallas Express, “Henry Lincoln Johnson Make Visit to Georgia and Speaks to Large Crowd.” ↩︎
Dallas Express, “Henry Lincoln Johnson Make Visit to Georgia and Speaks to Large Crowd.” ↩︎