Shared authority, by definition, is a collaborative approach that involves sharing power and responsibility with the public. Many times, we see attempts to control the history of the people by people who are ashamed and want to “move past” what happened and leave it in the past rather than learn from it. This by far is not allowing history to be shared but instead is modifying it to make certain parties feel at ease.
Frank Jackson and Jayla Allen in his office at PVAMU
You cannot put a price on a good education. Indeed, universities across the nation consider a good understanding of history one of the core sets of knowledge each undergraduate needs to obtain a bachelor’s degree. In my first few weeks working on the Digital PV Panther Project, I have gained access to a vast amount of information, which remains hidden away from researchers, students, and other stakeholders in the dark vault of the PVAMU archives. In my nascent quest to develop archival research skills, I have also gained much more clarity about the importance of the Digital PV Panther Project. By analyzing the events of an important, yet understudied, chapter of local voting rights history, this blog post demonstrates that historical understanding is necessary to achieve a heightened state of consciousness. This is the story of the PV 19.
Prairie View A&M students protest the county district attorney’s attempts to prosecute their fellow students for voter fraud in 1992.
(Photo: The Special Collections & Archives Department at PVAMU)
(Left) Brizjon Wilright and Kendric Jones held signs outside the Willie A. Tempton Student Center at Prairie View A&M to encourage other students to vote in 2016
(Photo: Shelby Knowles of The Texas Tribune)
The Prairie View Panther, April 1992.
Voting is crucial in a healthy democracy. Whether it’s a national, state, or local election, the significance of high voter turnout cannot be stressed enough. In 1928, Democratic Party Presidential Candidate Al Smith openly appealed to Black voters during his failed bid for the presidency. Since the Civil War, African Americans had aligned politically with the Party of Lincoln, the Republican Party, due to its core stance on abolishing slavery. During World War I, however, the Great Migration of African Americans out of the Jim Crow South created large voting blocs in several northern states, and the Democratic Party began to covet the Black vote in key swing states by appealing to the interests of African Americans.
African American’s love affair with the Democratic Party reached a milestone with the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which brought an end to the disfranchisement of African Americans on the national and state level. The number of registered Black voters rose significantly, and conservatives in power have attempted to dilute their voting strength in numerous ways ever since. In Waller County, Texas, for example, the students attending Prairie View A&M University repeatedly find themselves in the middle of an ongoing fight for the very soul of democracy.
Prairie View A&M students protest the county district attorney’s attempts to prosecute their fellow students for voter fraud in 1992.
(Photo: The Special Collections & Archives Department at PVAMU)
“A horsewhipping is what Frank Jackson needs,” argued Texas Advocate editor Mary Levy in mid-1992, “for misconstruing the facts to the media and, most importantly, to the students.” Having won the Democratic primary against Richard Frey (votes: 782 to 475), Frank Jackson faced Republican Ron Leverett for the seat of Waller County Commissioner in November 1992, and his campaign received national attention due to his support for 19 PVAMU students, who had been indicted locally for aggravated perjury and illegal voting.
In the spring of 1992, a host of PVAMU students had filled out registration cards during a voter registration drive, assumed they had concluded the process, and with confidence proceeded to vote. When their names did not appear on the registration roll, they signed affidavits stating that they were registered to vote. The voter registration office subsequently notified Assistant Waller County District Attorney A.M. “Buddy” McCaig. On March 26, 1992, he filed indictments against twenty-three individuals for aggravated perjury and illegal voting, and he issued subpoenas for them to appear before grand jury on April 2nd.
Prairie View A&M students protest the county district attorney’s attempts to prosecute their fellow students for voter fraud in 1992.
(Photo: The Special Collections & Archives Department at PVAMU)
The April 1992 March on Hempstead
Comparing it to the March on Washington, Prairie View Panther Editor-In-Chief Michell Johnson reported that “hundreds of students walked and drove caravan-style to Hempstead…accompanied by the Prairie View police, a fire truck carrying refreshments for the demonstrators and an ambulance for those who could not endure the heat…Many students armed with their voter registration cards lined up to exercise their right to vote. “It felt good,” admitted one student, “to be part of a unified effort to improve the rights of students at Prairie View.”
No one has ever questioned the rights of students at the University of Houston or Texas A&M to vote, but the issue is constantly raised about the students who attend PVAMU. Since the 1880s, voting boundaries in Waller County had split up the vote in the predominantly Black communities and given citizens little voice in government. Hempstead was divided into two voting precincts and Prairie View was divided into three. Students were forced to vote at two separate locations depending on which side of the campus they lived.
As a result of the 1980 census, however, the county was redistricted to maintain an equal number of voters in each precinct. Federally required redistricting of the voting precincts in Waller County gave Prairie View and the surrounding community a substantial amount of voting power. At long last, Waller County would have a representative government in 1992.
Of the 23,390 population, 11,993 were white, 8,609 were black and the rest were Hispanic or Asian. Fear struck deep in the hearts of the majority.
Rodney King's America
“In 1992, when you have a people that’s begging for civil rights and the President of the United States says no, and then in Waller County, you have a racist society that will try and put students in jail for voting, nothing has changed.”
Bilal Ashrel - One of the PV 19
Black Power
Do you realize that there are over 5,000 students at P.V., and that if we acted as a whole, we could have an immeasurable impact on Waller county?
Donna Shelton, one of the PV19
White Justice
I would hope the students get a fair trial and not the usual railroad job common in Waller County justice and law enforcement.
Gregory M. Smith
The Prairie View Panther featured a regular section called “Speak Out!,” which provided students a space to publicly voice their criticisms. In the April 3, 1992 edition, one of the PV19, Donna Shelton, took the opportunity to comment on her indictment as well as the impact on local politics.
As one of the 19 students who are being falsely accused of registration fraud, by the Waller County D.A, Albert “Buddy” McCaig, I feel that it is time for me to speak out!
Acting within the Constitution and exercising our right to vote, I, we were brought up on criminal charges. These charges hold penalties of two to ten years in prison, fines, or probation.
This is ludicrous. I feel that this is a ploy used by our enemies in the Waller county D.A’s office to harass and discourage Prairie View student from voting. Do you realize that there are over 5,000 students at P.V., and that if we acted as a whole, we could have an immeasurable impact on Waller county? Well I do, and I hope that you don’t let this infringement on our voting rights go unchallenged.
As students, in the past we have not been going to the polls enough. However, thanks to the strong leadership of the SGA and the extended P.V. family, who have been persistent in the struggle for students to be able to participate in the political system. But now we are now being discouraged from exercising our franchise. say to all P.V students, don’t let this incident stop you from doing the right thing, empower yourselves. If you are not registered, then do so, it is your right.
I would like to thank Mr. Frank Jackson, who has been at the forefront of this struggle, and I would also like to thank the entire Prairie View student body for being behind the P.V.19!
The fight is not over, we have been indicted. Just remember that if we don’t I take a stand today, there may not be a chance to do so in the future. The run-off elections are April 14 “We’re proud and we’re Black, and we ain’t going down like that!
Reflecting the increasingly frequent, unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud since 2016, the published response of Waller County district attorney McCaig in the Prairie View Panther demonstrates his efforts to dissuade PVAMU students from voting. In the open letter, which he asked be printed in its entirety, McCaig admitted to receiving a “great outpouring of support from many of the permanent citizens of Waller County,” most of whom did not “want their legally cast votes to be diluted by someone who is not a legal voter.” Attacking the 1979 SCOTUS decision in Symm v. United States, which allowed college students to vote where they attended school, McCaig argued, “it’s bad enough being forced to accept the fact that transient students living in a dormitory for a couple of semesters, paying no property taxes, have a right to vote in Waller County (when they should be voting at home) without having county citizens put up with illegal voting on top of that.”
No evidence of voter fraud has come to light to substantiate claims since 2016, and no evidence of illegal voting came to light in 1992. The PV19 were the victims of voter suppression tactics, and the same tactics have been resurrected since 2016 to suppress the voting rights of minorities. By examining the digital resources available about the PV19 and analyzing them in light of contemporary voter suppression efforts, this blog post has made clear that a better understanding of history is crucial to making confident political decisions. Consider where PVAMU is located and the history behind it. If we really put everything in perspective by stepping back and acknowledging the past, it is not difficult or far-fetched to see the prejudice oozing out of the county. In closing, I want to reiterate Donna Shelton’s call to action, which still rings true today:
We are now being discouraged from exercising our franchise [but] don’t let this incident stop you from doing the right thing, empower yourselves. If you are not registered, then do so, it is your right…We’re proud and we’re Black, and we ain’t going down like that!
“It is feasible to believe that what is now known as Wyatt Chapel Community Cemetery was in the beginning simply the burial place for the Kirby slaves and other black people of the community.”
Interview with George Ruble Woolfolk, 1989.
In the summer of 1989, Dr. Mildred W. Abshier and a research team consisting of Bessie Thomas, Frank Jackson, and Carrie B. Coss visited the cemetery with 82 year-old descendant Ida Lou Wells Owens Pierce, a longtime resident of the Wyatt Chapel community. Using the field research, local scholarship, and the information gleaned from several interviews, Dr. Abshier prepared the following report to accompany the historical marker application submitted to the Texas Historical Commission. Their efforts resulted in the dedication of a historical marker near the cemetery behind Prairie View A&M University in 1992. We located this report while preparing the grant proposal to the Summerlee Foundation in 2021, and we decided to publish it below in advance of the ground penetrating radar survey in September 2022.
Wyatt Chapel Community Cemetery, an abandoned all-black burial ground, is located on the north side of Prairie View A & M University campus, the Jesse Clary Survey, Abstract 111, Waller County Texas.1 Exact location of the cemetery with reference to the enclosed map and the Prairie View A & M Campus was attested by tax office personnel of Waller Independent School District, Waller, Texas, in which district the cemetery and the university are located.2
The burial site is a portion of the Jared E. Kirby plantation which the state of Texas purchased in 1876 from Mrs. Helen Marr Swearingen Kirby, widow of Jared E. Kirby, for the purpose of establishing the “Agricultural and Mechanical College for Colored Youth.”3 Size of the burial place is not definitely known, but is believed by various residents of the Prairie View area to consist of about five acres, more or less.4
The burial place is bounded on the west by old Farm Road 1098 by which a north entry is made to the campus, on the south by Flukinger Road, and on the northeast by Pond Creek, with Farm Road 1488 paralleling the creek, in general at a distance of some one-eighth mile.
Just when the cemetery began to be used is not known. However, the Kirby mansion at Alta Vista is believed to have been built at some time between 1858 and 1861, and Kirby is reported to have owned some four hundred slaves.5 Since the beginning date of the cemetery is lost in the haze of time and the lack of records, Dr. George Woolfolk, Chairman of the History Department at Prairie View A&M University, Emeritus, said, “It is feasible to believe that what is now known as Wyatt Chapel Community Cemetery was in the beginning simply the burial place for the Kirby slaves and other black people of the community.”6
Worthy of noting is the fact that when Waller County Historical Commission surveyed the County to obtain information for publishing a county cemetery directory (Published in 1977), Mrs. Carrie B. Coss, of Prairie View, gathered the needed information for black cemeteries.7 She was advised by several elderly persons of the Prairie View area that slaves from nearby Liendo plantation were buried in the cemetery in question. Interestingly, Jared E. Kirby, owner of [enslaved labor camp] Alta Vista, which was to become Prairie View A&M University campus, and Leonard Waller Groce, owner of Liendo plantation, were cousins and their plantations were in close proximity. The present owner of Liendo has indicated that he did not know where the Liendo slaves were buried.8 No one, other than those whom Mrs. Coss interviewed (Coss note), was able to point to a spot where the Liendo slaves were interred.
On June 22, 1989 researchers (Mrs. Bessie Thomas, Mr. Frank Jackson, Mrs. Carrie Coss, and Dr. Mildred W. Abshier) visited the abandoned burial site. Mrs. Ida Lou Wells Owens Pierce, age eighty-two, a Wyatt descendant and long time resident of the Wyatt Chapel/Prairie View area, accompanied the researchers.
Abandoned since the early 1950s (The latest death date available from head stones was 1953.),the cemetery was quite overgrown, covered with dense growth of underbrush and shrubs. A few large trees stood among the under growth and this would seem to indicate that once the place had been kept cleared of all but a few trees. Professor Howard Jones, History Department of Prairie View A&M University, with students from the University, had cut a pathway through the underbrush to a portion of the burial ground where markers – generally slab-type head-stones, some of which were broken and/or overgrown with lichens – were yet standing, however some were broken and lying on the ground. Researchers were able to record names and dates on those visible markers (See list below). On every side there were numerous depressions in the soil which indicated the presence of unmarked graves. Of these, Mrs. Pierce said that they were indeed old grave sites. She further said that Caroline (See list) was her grandmother and that she had been a slave. She believed that many slaves, or those formerly held in slavery, were buried at the site. She pointed to a grave within a wire enclosure and noted that was the grave of her mother, Mrs. Mattie Wyatt Wells. Although not attested by markers, Mrs. Pierce indicated that numerous members of the Wyatt and Owens families, as well as other black persons, were buried at the site. She also said that an uncle of hers who was a minister had established the Wyatt Chapel Church which is a mile, or more, from the cemetery.
The consensus of opinion of the elderly ones who live in the area is that the Wyatt Chapel Community Cemetery was abandoned when a more easily accessible burial place became available in the nearby Hempstead area. From dates on stones observed and recorded the site appears to have been abandoned in the early 1950s, as the latest death date found was 1953.
In conclusion, it appears most likely that the cemetery was originally the burial place of Kirby slaves, probably also slaves from nearby Liendo Plantation. After Emancipation it continued as a burial place for black persons of the area until the 1950s.
Headstone Recordings in Wyatt Chapel Community Cemetery
James Duckworth Nov. 19, 1909 Died Sept. 3, 1949
Milo Wilson, Jr. Tex. Pvt. U.S. Army WWI July 22, 1892-Nov. 8, 1953
Albert Collings Died July 5, 1922 Gone but not forgotten OLD PAP
Mrs. Mattie Wyatt Died 8-17-82
Luther B. Felder Tex. Pvt. 24th QM Group, WWII May 9, 1926 – Apr. 24, 1948
Theodore Anderson JUNETH 5 (handmade marker)
Elsie Bailey Texas Pvt. QM Corps, WWI March 31, 1892 – May 19, 1948
Memory of Caroline Wife of (stone broken) Died June 24, 1898
End Notes
1. “Map of Cemetery Area” from the District Tax Appraisal Office, Katy, Texas.
2. Stanley Holt, Assistant Superintendent for Finance, the Tax Office, Waller Independent School District, Waller, TX, November 6, 1989.
3. A History of Waller County, Texas (Hempstead, TX: Waller County Historical Survey Committee, 1973), 263.
4. Notes by Bessie Thomas, Prairie View, TX.
5. George R. Woolfolk, “Alta Vista: A Monument of Sorrow,” One Hundred One Heritage Homes of Waller County, Texas (Hempstead, TX: Waller County Historical Society, 1976), 257.
6. Interview with Dr. George R. Woolfolk, Prairie View, TX, August 1, 1989.
7. Notes by Mrs. Carrie B. Coss, September 18, 1989 – “While surveying Waller County to determine the location of the black cemeteries in this area several old citizens in the Prairie View community, all of whom are now deceased, were contacted by me I was told by these people that the cemetery on the back road from Prairie View (now referred to as the Wyatt Chapel Community Cemetery) was the burial place of slaves from Liendo Plantation.”
8. Interview with Carl Detering, of Houston, at Liendo, October, 1989.
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